Parliament of Fowls

A wonderful image from Arctic Tern's fantastic and witty blog. I asked Arctic if I could nick it for mine and he said yes. Terns are nice like that .

There are two Angela Smiths, by the way - this is the Sheffield Hillsborough MP. Owlperson notes this is interesting as the local football team who play at the doomed Hillsborough stadium are nicknamed the Owls. Angela Smith, he notes with interest, is one herself.

The next head on the guillotine is Bob Ainsworth's. More TVs, a sofa, the usual...bung it all on, no-one will know. Blah, blah, blah.

The picture shows him standing beside a fighter jet - he is (currently) minister for the Armed Forces - which would have been funny if it had been claimed on expenses.

Clarence is going to do the honours for his card.

Strength, reversed

Clarence: A loss of control, pure and simple. Ainsworth had the means to pay for these items himself (though it would indeed have been comical to have the jet claimed on expenses, I doubt it would have got passed the Fees Office, who reduced his claims for the TV and sofa to the maximum possible), but chose not to listen to his own conscience and thus must confront and be confronted over his own excessive troughminstering. It must be noted that the card also refers to the ease to which he is jettisoned, though this will have to wait for the moment as it is not as tortuous or outrageous as the dry rot or the Kirkbride files, which could themselves be a novel worthy of Jane Austen.

The Tories, after remaining fairly consistently at 40% for the last couple of polls in other newspapers, and running a 22% lead over Labour in one of the polls released yesterday, have now crashed to 30% in the latest Independent ComRes poll, which is their monthly survey and shows a 15% collapse in support since the beginning of the expenses scandal. The poll was taken over the weekend - 29-31 May - and may have therefore been influenced by the revelations on Sunday of Cameron's own problematic mortgage: it's the only thing that really changed for the Tories over that weekend and seems a plausible explanation. Monday's polls would have been completed before the Mail on Sunday revelations.

I have written one part of a new series covering the coming European and local elections in detail, and am working with another guide, my kestrel totem called Clarence (who does prefer to appear as a human, since he has had one life in Victorian England as a merchant in East London along the lines, he says, of Arthur Clennam in Little Dorrit). Clarence, being more detached from life than Owlperson, and less Tory (he voted Liberal, he says), can assist better, though he does want to say rather more about me than I would like to publicise at the moment. However, fair dues. He is my guide after all.

I am going to use him to help analyse this poll since it is a surprising result (I had to really look hard at the cover to credit it, or to work out whether it was like the previous Independent poll whose headline figures were still at 40% for the Tories but when you put in those who had said they weren't going to vote at all it fell to 31%) but this is a headline figure. It is taking a long time to get my head around this.

And Howard is in the clear - as the 31st cheapest MP despite gardening bills that initially made my eyes bleed and caused my own Southampton moment yesterday. I can look my blog posts about him in the eye and say - well, I told myself that a long time ago, I was just too scared to look. Owlperson is very happy at this too.

All right, enough about my misty-eyed fantasies . Clarence urges me onward and is going to set me the questions to ask the cards for this. I am channelling him directly here.

Situation - III Cups

Clarence: the card here refers to the situation being far more fluid than previously thought. The Three of Cups does normally represent fun and laughter, but here the energies need to be read rather than the "meaning" that people often ascribe. The energies are in free motion. Usually this translates into fun and gaiety, but there is a warning here that water is sloshing around and stirring up emotions which are in direct opposition to each other - the delight of the 22% lead tempered and opposed by the misgivings over Cameron's mortgage which have seemingly caused this collapse.

Clarifying here, it is possible to see that The Tower means that the collapse in the poll rating has come about because the leadership was far too complacent and having too much fun in the government's collapse. A direct omen of things to come and one which the Tories would do well to understand that from here on in things get a lot messier for Cameron than they promised before the weekend.

Louise is also asking me why she didn't feel this coming. I am saying that she has shut herself off to the possibilities in this situation because she doesn't want to believe what is going on. The thrill of the chase I ordered a halt to when the revelations about Howard came out - something too personal for her to relate just yet - but for her protection I made sure she took time out from posting to re-orientate this blog away from a wild chase after errant MPs towards a more constructive and more detached analysis of the situation.

Veracity of figures - IPSOS MORI (Tories 40%, 22% lead) - The Hermit

Clarence: The Hermit symbolises withdrawal to an inner space and the development of an understanding distinct from others. The way it relates to the IPSOS MORI poll giving the Tories a 22% lead is that this is taken in conditions which have since changed. It was true to itself, but there is no longer a clear distinction between the Tories and Labour since Cameron himself was revealed to have more than a £680 wisteria clearance bill. It holds its own truth, but a truth which has gone for the mean time.

Veracity of figures - COMRES (Tories 30%, 8% lead, neck-and-neck with Others combined) - VII Cups, reversed

C: The upright Seven is indicative of a veil drawn across the situation, either because we are not permitted to know, or that the outcome still depends on our own actions and the future is not fixed in this regard. (To those able to see perfectly, the future is as fixed as if it had already happened, because otherwise clairvoyance would not be possible. But to see perfectly, you have to have passed or have access to talents beyond the reach of many mortals. There are only a handful of people who have this perfect second sight, and I am not at liberty to transmit their names to Louise, though she knows one of them already.) The reversal of the card is the revelation of reality to those who have previously not been permitted to see it. Thus this poll is as relevant - or moreso - than the previous poll because of the change in atmosphere on Sunday as regards Cameron's own complicity in the scams the MPs were running. Suddenly his scrutiny committee might have the power to strip him of his seat. Suddenly the future looks much more shaky for stability at the top of the Conservative Party, which we will read for in a moment. All we need to know here is that a veil has been lifted at last and there now follows a reorientation on a par with Howard's own "Southampton moment".

Underlying reactions - IV Pentacles, reversed

C: The Four of Pentacles reversed means that what had been carefully gathered in and was being successfully defended has been disrupted and scattered through a lack of care and attention to what kind of revelation was possible. Cameron appears in a shaky situation because of this poll and it comes as a shock - because yesterday's result was such a good one - within as well as without. It is a reaction against his leadership because it was his mortgage that was revealed to be a scam. He finds himself being investigated by his own committee and it's having reverberations internally as well as externally.

Underlying movements - V Pentacles, reversed

C: The underlying motion here is to try and regain the initiative and repair the damage done, as would be expected of anyone else. We always have to give him a right of reply to this. The Five upright would suggest blindness to the real situation, possibly that people were going to surprise him and vote Tory anyway on June 4 and later on. But reversed, the card reverses the situation. Foxy can bluster his way out of this, try and manoeuvre because he still has hope and the ability to respond. But he may not really understand the real extent or damage his mortgage has done the party.

Roots of the situation - Ace of Swords

C: The situation took one slash to ruin Foxy's day. The Ace of Swords can be indicative in some situations of a decisive move - at least a superficial move, like Foxy's immediate announcements following the initial revelations - by the person who is moving. The Ace here, however, says that something decisive has been done to Cameron - and his tail has been cut clearly off. Perhaps Louise can be prevailed upon to post the ballad "Mr Fox" to illustrate how people are caught out in this manner. It would be entertaining to see how life often does imitate art in this and other situations.

Seeds sown by the poll - King of Swords

C: This card depicts a judge or the exercise of judgement in legal matters. Here it depicts a person - I know who it is, Louise is still perhaps in denial about this so I will refrain from saying his name - who L has often used this card to represent. However it more intensively represents the action of those who have the power to put these polls into effect - and the damage the Mail on Sunday really did do to Cameron, despite the media's efforts to swallow it in the hope that their preferred candidate's path into Downing Street would be smoothed rather than roughened too by this disastrous turn of events.

Advice to Cameron - V Cups

This card upright gives Cameron a warning, but also a solution. Louise says this often suggests that something of the situation remains. True enough. But on the other hand, Cameron must not blind himself to the poll - he has spilled most of the goodwill since the scandal broke and squandered it on what Simon Heffer called "fatuous" pronouncements in the illusion that he himself would not be questioned by the powers-that-be at the Telegraph. Howard was 31st cheapest; his successor has been found wanting, and the destructive nature of this scandal means that the situation will last for Cameron. The card therefore tells him to focus on this poll and perhaps build himself back up. However, we do not hold out much hope of that - he has never been a good learner.

Advice to Tories - VI Cups, reversed

Again, accept that the good times have drained away and make steps to solve the problems in the leadership. I needn't go much further on this - the party's arrogance has cost it a lot of votes now and the downturn in their fortunes is dangerous and should, in the traditional meaning of this card, shock them out of their hazy complacency and arcadian abundance into the reality and enormity of what has happened. They have been cast out of the Garden of Eden and must live in the real world, not the world they had so carefully built around themselves and their fawning media mirrors.

Warning to Cameron - The Emperor

This Major Arcana card suggests that Cameron is now facing a crisis of his own leadership akin to that which has plagued many Conservative leaders, and that he does not have the capabilities now to right himself before he is hammered at the polls. He is no longer top dog and must earn any respect he does get from the media.

Warning to Tories - The Lovers

This is a reflection of the reversed Six above and as we unpack the bad but vague cards we saw for the Tories earlier on in the spring it becomes inevitable that they will soon have to go through the process they have been through before - choosing someone who is capable of leading them back to government. Cameron was too vague for too long - they need to think about depth as well as breadth and transform the situation into a lasting union rather than a cheap fix that boils over or goes cold on them. There are still possibilities and this poll makes them all the likelier.

Results on Thursday (briefly as we will be looking at this in more depth later) - locals - II Swords, reversed

C: Upright, the Two of Swords means perfect but stagnant equilibrium. Balance here is disrupted, and although the party had a lot of confidence going in to this set of elections, the last month has erased a lot of that poise. It is not catastrophic as yet, but the loss of vital balance will have largely disrupted the waltz towards Downing Street that had long been the Tories' best hopes for 2010. It is not clear from this single card that the result will be catastrophic, but the stakes have been so high for so long that anything less than what they most want is going to cause problems for the leadership and destabilise the overall political situation further.

Results on Sunday - Euro-elections - Ace of Pentacles, reversed

C: As a result this is the gift denied. There is a disappointment here, because of the difficulties of responding to such a problematic poll there is a reverse momentum here where Cameron cannot guarantee a good result because of the scandal and because of his own fumblings. There is the possibility for a result which denies both parties the ultimate prize and provokes difficulties for both leaderships.

Direction afterwards - VIII Pentacles

C: All I will say about this card is that after the elections there is the possibility to repair the damage. This does not mean Cameron is wholly safe. It means that damage done can be rectified. At whose expense and to whose advantage, it is not possible to convince this medium so we must wait for it to be shown what kind of repairs are necessary.

Solution - The Wheel of Fortune, reversed

C: Upright, the Wheel is largely a good omen, suggesting that events again take control and drive things forward. As we have seen a bombshell like the "expenses files" can really shatter the status quo overnight, even though at the beginning we upstairs wondered whether the papers would do justice to the Tories as well as Labour. The reversed Wheel drives things downward; more events, more twists compound the already unstable situation and make it difficult to predict what will survive of Cameron's project after the elections as well as before. At least we know that both parties are equally in the firing line - and that there are people who have been spared the full forces of nature given that they have kept up their presences in the places where politics matters - the community, the party, the country and their families and friends. It is them who will ultimately prosper, not the hucksters who have driven us to despair and sold us fake options to solve the issues involved.

Outcome for Cameron - Temperance

C:Things are not over yet, there is some stability in Cameron's position, but not much - it flows from one cup to another. Temperance can be seen as a healing card, but he will have to recover and repair his position and prove himself to be a genuine leader rather than someone selling the public fakes from off the back of a lorry. He needs to think about his position and prove his worth to the party, otherwise they will defenestrate him too.

Outcome for Tories - II Cups, reversed

C: This card clearly shows a parting of the ways and interpersonal difficulties. It is not an auspicious card for a leader who has lost touch and lost credibility. If Cameron can still deliver the goods, it might not get too difficult. But if he cannot - and he may now not do so - then the Tories will always act to bring the party back into contention, and we know from long experience what that means.

Jacqui Smith is to quit as Home Secretary.

The Guardian just printed this on its online bulletin so there are no real details as yet (1.54pm, Tuesday) but I needed to post this even though I decided to take a break until the Euro-elections were over (for reasons of sanity, burnout, and my own Southampton moment yesterday). No such luck I'm afraid - not while the woman who started all this has finally done the decent thing and thrown the baby out with her dirty bathwater.

No doubt someone will make another Downfall parody about this but for the moment I'm off for a walk.

Gurgle.