Parliament of Fowls

Tory donor Lord Kalms is withdrawing his support for the Tory party at these elections and telling people to vote for a fringe party – he is choosing UKIP.

So this, like the current Cabinet resignations, is lighting a fire under Cameron as well as Brown. Donors often speculate like this but the core support usually holds up under fire unless there is a serious point to be made. Stuart Wheeler was kicked out of the party in April before the expenses scandal got going but the main casualty of the expenses saga was Norman Tebbit, who urged voters to abstain rather than vote Conservative. Kalms is flirting with dismissal, but he is not the only one who should by rights go – Gove and Maude still remain, after all, even after the Cabinet bloodbath today. In a way Gordon Brown missed a trick – he could have said at PMQs, had he been more confident, that he had had the main problems removed from his Cabinet – now it was Foxy’s turn to reciprocate. Instead Vulpes Vulpes has lost not only another large donor but a sizeable part of his poll lead in the course of trying to win people back by government-by-SMS. He – and the arrogant Dan Hannan in the Torygraph – need to start listening to disillusioned councillors like Stuart Munro before they too go the way of the Blears.

On with the reading.

READING for the CONSERVATIVE PARTY for the EUROPEAN ELECTIONS on 4 June 2009

Situation – The Devil, reversed

C: The card here shows that the situation is inescapable for the Tories – the more they project outwards and crow about the situation Labour is in, the more their retinue flake at the edges, and the more their situation too becomes untenable. After the charge of the Light Brigade (“Into the valley of death/Rode the 600” – which is also eerily repeated at the end of Briggs’ seminal apocalyptic graphic novel, “When the Wind Blows”) the aftermath of the inescapable truths about parliamentarians’ behaviour is largely concerned with reaping the whirlwind sown over the years of largesse and over-indulgence. The Devil intensifies and becomes even more unpredictable; Hannan’s arrogant “ostrich politics” (L points out this comes from the Polish phrase strusia polityka) article underlines the incapability of politicians to even contemplate their own impending doom.

Owlperson: Hannan illustrates an uncomfortable situation and as a fellow Conservative I do actually know and respect him more in private than in public. I don’t believe he can write otherwise. But Clarence does actually point out that we are not allowed to speak our minds without scrutiny from the media, and I can’t name myself here for that reason (also because filtering my mind through Louise’s means some important detail is actually lost, enough to render my own statements mere observations rather than predictions). Hannan would hate to point out the real situation on the ground in a national newspaper printed on the morning of an important and watershed election. But perhaps if things did get reformed and party discipline was able to relax somewhat – something that may not happen in my lifetime but which I would consider the sign of a mature and grown-up democracy – it would be easier to tell the truth. But Hannan may not see that truth – few deep partisans do – and this is the sign of the Devil, that we are blinded by our own opinions and cannot see the deep divisions in the country, and that is our own downfall, not the fault of the public.

Situation with Kalms – VIII Wands, reversed

C: Kalms throws a spanner into the works and jams the cogs and gears that are driving the Tories forward. He is stopping the clock here – the Tories are damaged and delayed by this because even their older supporters are leaving them in droves. It pushes the case for his own dismissal towards Foxy, and there is a danger here that he may try another smaller party – and end up liking it. Foxy needs people to stay onside, and he is losing support from a lot of staunch Tory quarters.

Situation with Munro – Justice, reversed

C: Mr Munro has worked hard for the party as a councillor and a local activist and his enthusiasm is dampened by the current frustrations – visibly. Justice reversed here says the situation he believes is unfair to him and to others like him who feel let down by the high command. His frustrations may yet destabilise Cameron and lead to something more dramatic when the Tories fail to reach what they desire from these elections.

Conservative Party nationally – Queen of Wands, reversed

C: The party has had difficulty convincing people that it can respond to this crisis in a way in which the public will thank it for in the short term, if not the long run if current leadership remains. The reversed Queen indicates a lack of responsiveness, and this can be seen by the derisory ideas for reform put forward before the recess – nothing that showed any progressive Conservative thinking, a warmed-over New Labour tactic of using ephemeral technology to spin and proselytise rather than involve, integrate and encourage participation, and a reliance on gimmicks that are the hallmarks of this leadership, in which one half-baked plan is put forward after another without any kind of coherency of thought or overall ideas for action. The limp wrist has been exposed and the party can’t go anywhere momentous for duck islands and moat-dredging.

Conservative leadership – V Pentacles

C: Here the leadership misses the point and is a disappointment to donors, members and activists all. The leadership is hamstrung by its complicity in this situation, and is only saved from going under by big struggles within the Cabinet. The lack of substance has meant the party has tried to search for opportunities to play a long game, but the expenses scandal hit it harder than perhaps the Torygraph even expected and this has made their job all the more difficult than it already was.

Conservative Party in the field – VIII Cups

C: The party is restless and, illustrated by Stuart who is standing down at the next council elections from his post in Swallowfield, moving on into other spheres of interest because the outcome is now uncertain again after years of illusory plenty. It is trying to find a stable raison d’etre, it is trying too many ideas at once and not consolidating itself as a party of government, it is looking for cheap fixes, and it is doomed to – at least – find the Cameron well has run dry and to try another figure in the hopes of finding that magic formula that assisted Labour back into office after years in the wilderness.

Projected result – Page of Wands, reversed

C: The party knows it is going to be battered, and it knows that this will be painful and hamper its abilities to win the next election. All that is unknown is the actual figures.

Actual voting behaviour – III Cups, reversed

C: Those that have voted Tory will not necessarily do so this time round. It is difficult to see what is going on here, but the party is over at Westminster. People here vote according to their interests, but there is little success augured here unless the Tories are braver and cleverer and try to substantiate their gains by putting together something to save Parliament from damnation. People will not vote Tory willingly, and the party will lose some of its momentum as a result.

Difficulties – The Star, reversed

C: Again, this is becoming relentless. An inauspicious card again – hope is illusory and short-lived – and the Tories look uneasy and unprepared for any sort of European progress, still less equipped to fight for a place in government.

Solutions – The Lovers, reversed

C: The grassroots and backbenches have to take the leadership to task. With Kalms’ pronouncement they lose another prominent donor through indecision, inaction on some of their more senior problems in the expenses scandal, and Hague’s squirming on Newsnight scraped away a few more votes. There needs to be an inquest and sackings and there needs to be blood on the carpet before Cameron can even pretend to be ready to go into the run-up to an election.

Outcome of the result on the night – Queen of Pentacles, reversed

C: Similar to Labour, the lack of control and material direction over the party at the moment translates into a bad showing, or worse than needed to win a general poll outright. It may be time for Cameron to reconsider his personnel – or even his own position – if he cannot make any sort of hay while Labour burns.

Outcome for the foreseeable future – VII Swords

C: There is some chance that the Tories can pull things together again, but it will take delicate handling and balance to do this and it may require the swords to be wielded against close allies. If Cameron can’t do this, someone else will.

Outcome for the long-term – The Chariot, reversed

C: Again, there is a chastening effect here and a reduction in momentum which brings the party’s problems to the fore and demands that they be dealt with. The expenses scandal will not die hard while Maude and Gove remain on the front-bench; and Cameron’s own questionable mortgage has already laid him low, albeit as an also-ran story which has not had any sizeable impact on his leadership quite yet. These results force the party to re-assess their situation and deal with the problems.

 

The state that the Cabinet is currently in is not, to say the least, a very good one, but one thing Owlperson points out – while still maintaining that it looks worse than it is and that can damage the government even if now harm was initially meant – that Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears were probably pushed, rather than jumped of their own accord. It is difficult to see the reason for a broadly optimistic reading, but the idea that the two worst offenders of the expenses saga have now left the government might be taken on board by Cameron – if he could get past his own difficulties with regards to his mortgage.

Clarence suggests we cut to the chase this evening and do not follow this particular reading with any more of a lengthy pre-amble than necessary. Focussing on what the cards say is important for balance and information, and there is still a fourth part to this series to publish by the end of tonight so that tomorrow (I have an appointment with a hypnotherapist tomorrow morning and have to work in the afternoon) we can clear the decks for breaking news.

READING for the LABOUR PARTY for the EUROPEAN ELECTIONS on 4 June 2009

Situation – IV Swords, reversed

C: Labour finds itself being thrown out of a sleep into which it was reclining before the expenses scandal really broke open. The sleep was not that of a party which could afford to rest on its laurels; it was more a trance which kept it focussed on delivering as a government and avoiding the worst dangers of disruptive politics. This scandal has been deadly for Labour as well as for the main opposition, but at the moment the focus is fixed on the government and Cabinet difficulties, so the deadly machinery represented by the pattern of swords on this card is cutting deep into the party’s electoral chances. However the card does not represent insoluble problems, rather just the deep and painful realisation that it is sliding precariously down the slope towards oblivion.

Labour party nationally – Page of Cups

C: Interestingly enough, like the Star card we drew for Hazel Blears’ resignation, and mirroring the card of the day, the Page of Cups shows a humble and eager to learn party trying to make up for lost time. The Page of Cups facilitates learning on an emotional level, and the attempts, however graceless and blunt, to face up to festering problems and putting them right. The idea that Blears and Smith have resigned leaving the government in chaos is one thing, but the resignations pave the way for better man management, fewer bent politicians in office and certainly a party which perhaps realises that these women are more toxic within the Cabinet than outside it as they will be very shortly. Contrition and humility produce a party who understand they are on the back foot and are accepting advice from the press and from the people who still genuinely want to support them.

Labour leadership – The Star, reversed

C: Brown is living on borrowed time right enough, and the dangers here seem to be that the lack of optimism can suddenly cloud over any depth of vision within which Brown seems to have in abundance. He knew, for example, last year, that circumstances in the global markets would soon conspire to make a strong PM with economic clout more attractive – “no time for a novice” resonated for a while during the winter when this was needed. He may still make it to conference – someone on Newsnight last night said that only inertia prevents a leadership challenge before then – and then turn it round again as the economy improves. But this is underestimating the power of the expenses scandal to continue throughout the summer and the potential it has to wreck any such plans he might have had before that to revive his flagging fortunes. Cameron has a similar problem because of the extent to which he himself is implicated in it, but Gordon’s government is currently on the agenda and being ripped open. The Star reversed does mean that hope is still there, but it is rapidly running out, and without hope there can be no recovery this year to match last year’s bounce-back.

Labour party in the field – The Lovers, reversed

C: The Labour Party has been tarnished and tarnishes itself by being scared of the electorate. We do not yet know the mood in the Conservative Party, but the Lovers card, which is quite a common pull at the moment, suggests the lack of faith in partnerships on a grand scale, and a lack of decision-making and context for the party to operate within.

Projected result – The High Priestess

C: There is a depth to which Labour know the result and are keeping their own projections quiet while people speculate. They are intuitive enough as a party to know what people think of them and intelligent enough to know how to respond to people’s concerns. To the extent that this card is good, the result will be good enough to keep things from going under entirely. There will be no general election or leadership challenges under the auspices of this card, because the anticipation in the party has reached levels to which they have already read the writing on the wall and Brown has acted accordingly with his more corrupt minions. The result will not shock anyone, and thus building has already begun to reconstruct the Cabinet in order to go forward afterwards; though for how long given other portents I don’t know.

Actual voting behaviour – Queen of Pentacles, reversed

C: The reversed Queen is damaging enough but represents the distrust of the administration as a whole and is based on the foundations of the expenses scandal more than anything else. The reversed Queen could also be seen as the end of Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears, both powerful administrative figures who lacked the probity or charisma to survive this year but could in the future have a potential to return to the front line under new management once their penance is served. People will vote on this line, and the events of the past few days have damaged the Conservatives (with Hague’s shambolic performance on Newsnight and Cameron’s mortgage hitting the Sunday papers), so holding off a Swords card in this position might staunch a real exodus to the opposite side as opposed to towards minor parties easily excluded from a general election.

Owlperson: Clarence, from my point of view this is right but you have to remember that this Cabinet will not see the General Election in. You and I know that this represents the end of the two senior Cabinet women, and the short-term view of the electorate in that respect, but beyond tomorrow the possible scenarios are all under the auspices of the Devil, which means the danger and excitement – and potential for cataclysmic surprise – are all more likely than a smooth progression out of this scandal and towards a potential election. Although I cannot reveal who I am in real life, being only a channel of someone participating in the situation at the moment (more to protect Louise from unwanted cease-and-desist letters than because of personal modesty), I know the situation from the inside and know that the situation will only intensify as the summer draws on, not dissipate.

Difficulties – VII Swords

C: A play with surprises, as a well-known spread is called. The Seven of Swords dictates an unexpected surprise – a rout is not what I really mean, because everyone is predicting a rout – but this surprise may be in Labour’s favour than in their disfavour. A tactical stroke is able to save them from a proper pasting, just as the projections on the night last time round were putting Labour and Conservative neck-and-neck but the actual results brought a clear lead of 27 (Con) seats to 19 (Lab), for Howard’s Tories. This could be to do with the march of the smaller parties, or it could be that Labour have already reached the bedrock of their support, or that the Tories lose seats too. Whatever, the Seven suggests that a factor hitherto unconsidered enters play at the last moment. We will not know until Sunday what this is, but this is Labour’s fight to win or lose.

Solutions – The Chariot, reversed

C: Labour need to play down expectations. In some ways, they do that masterfully – witness the way they put it about that they believed they would lose Glenrothes, only to win it very safely.  This may be what they are doing, though at least part of the danger here is real and not just emanating from their spin doctors, and talking themselves down in order to hide good results from canvassing has a danger inherent in it that they will put off otherwise faithful supporters because they look like a losing ticket. It is evident that they will have a difficulty regaining some sort of momentum and they need to look at other methods of campaigning rather than blind charging ahead. John Major’s soap box springs to mind.

Owlperson: I agree but it is also a lessening of momentum in general and the possibilities that what was convincingly faked in Glenrothes is now utterly genuine. No-one in my experience campaigning is saying they will vote for either party and they are not hostile to me – because I’m one of the people who hasn’t abused their expenses – but they are giving my party the bum’s rush and going for a third party choice, either LibDem or fringe. I can’t see Labour regaining any momentum after this or rebounding to any extent, but the comfort for them is that we are both in the same boat. Dejected Mr Munro finally realises the game is up if he has not yet announced his retirement from the council: he may know a lot more than we do as well. We shall see what this means.

Outcome of the result on the night – II Wands, reversed

C: This stands for the stagnation rather than decline of energies and actually it’s not a bad omen, despite the reversal. It represents a carriage stuck in the mud, rather than anything catastrophic. I think the result will be bad but the expectations will have been worse, just like the Conservative result last time round in 2004. It will ruin any chances of a Labour revival before the autumn, and as Owlperson is at pains to point out, that may decide the shape and form of the next government as the summer boils on.

Outcome for the foreseeable future – IV Wands

C: A counter-intuitive result in that structure and stability have been re-established in this card and some form of balance achieved. A delicate structure is formed – it can be knocked down again very quickly – but the equally bad result projected for the Conservatives is likely to make Labour look like they have had a lucky escape.

Outcome for the long-term – Ace of Wands

C: This is what Owlperson is trying to say – that the energies are only accumulating because of the expenses saga rather than dissipating. The direction and focus of this card is dangerous if what looks like it could happen is bad. Labour cannot win – that is certain – but the landscape will be transformed and overhauled before any party can truly say they are onto a winner. For Labour this looks like a gun pointed at them, but both of us guides know that it is both parties which will be in the firing line. Clarity and focus are provided here – but at what cost and to whom, as yet only God knows.

Gerald Warner is on tip-top form this week.

From the comments section looks like the Tories did lose votes over Wee Willie Winkie on Newsnight after all.

Like on many issues it is more the politicians who fascinate me than the policies, and I am a Euro-agnostic after dabbling in federalism at university and going on a rather sickening goody-two-shoes Young European Federalists' junket to Vienna where in a role-playing game about the Council of Ministers, I was the only one playing the game as if I was a real Foreign Secretary - that is, dealing with what was best for my own country (I think I represented Timbuktoo) rather than what was best for the EU. Erm, isn't that what the Council of Ministers is supposed to do?! I got a (verbally) smacked botty as a result. Oh dear. I only went because the year before we had some rather off-the-cuff (and off-the-record) drinking games; and I still blame them for making me miss my connection to Dublin where my mother was living at the time on the way home for Christmas.

The only exam paper I got a First on at university however was a paper in which - for a "Democracy and Democratisation" module in my third year at the London School of Economics - I wrote that the EU does not represent pure democracy, but for trading and environmental policies, which cut across borders, it was often practically necessary to override pure democracy to enable agreement between nation states. This supra-national body meant that shibboleths of my lecturer/professor's course were dealt with (you couldn't do that course if you weren't prepared at some stage to stand up and denounce American politics as run by mere money - when it is hardly possible to run a nationwide campaign without sums that would put a British MP's claim to shame) but in a way which guaranteed that I had not only read the books on the course but had understood them properly as well.

I am voting Green for the European elections, perhaps as a result. Again I am agnostic to say the least on climate change. Fluctuations happen over such long periods that the average human lifespan will only register a gradual warming or gradual cooling, and although changes in the Earth's structure do affect human communities in large cataclysmic developments - just ask the Viking farmers of Greenland - in general terms the Earth was warmer at the time of Christ's birth than it is now, with thriving viticulture in the south of England under the Pax Romana. Green activists will always seize on natural modulation in the wind patterns to claim that this does not disprove climate change theories, it merely develops them. The winter this year, in Owlperson's opinion, was as normal British winters should be - cold, slightly snowy in rural areas, definable prolonged periods of near- or sub-zero temperatures. The twenty-year refrigerator effect brought deep snow to London and much of the south east (it was the week in which I was working at 7am on a number of days and walking through the snow as it was falling was just amazing), but then the environmentalists started to crow about - of course - more extreme weather, and that this just meant that somehow global warming was happening elsewhere. Of course. There has to be a reason to perpetuate the pseudo-science involved in a lot of climate change discussions. I do know someone for who environmental science is a hobby (she's only 16, I do hope she doesn't grow out of it). We need more people prepared to look at this rationally and take the debate forward, when gardeners in the Observer remarked at the beginning of the spring that plants had composted properly beneath the snow and ice this winter and the general outlook was similar to that of twenty to thirty years ago before we discovered global warming/climate change to frighten people with and had to make do with the Russians instead.

However I do want a party which has a commitment to using the EU for what it is there for - supranational decision-making. With Labour and the Tories damned by their pathetic responses to the expenses scandal, and the LibDems still partly complicit, the whole hog is necessary to be gone because of a need for a positive vote for positive reasons. 

Europe enables these decisions to be taken at a level . I do believe any moves to solidify the presidential powers of the Commission and Parliament are doomed to failure because the treaties enabling this calcification have to be passed by so many countries it only takes one or two to hold the process up until . I predicted at the time of the greatest fuss over Lisbon that the treaty would end up as toilet roll in Sarkozy and Merkel's (communal?) bathroom. I would vote No to it, even if the only reason for doing so is seeing Tony Blair end up as President of Europe rather than consigned to the dustbin of the Faith Foundation history that he currently is. But we need to stay in it to win it, and the Conservatives' half-in, half-out stance just won't really do much for Britain in the long run except ensure that we remain subject to laws and their influences without really being able to have much of a role in drafting or formulating them.

Federalism won't work with 27 member states and the sclerosis will eventually collapse the EU back into a trading bloc and wealh redistribution network, as it really is in most respects now anyway. Michael Howard's "made to measure Europe" is the best hope while the Council of Ministers remains in control, purely because no Minister on that Council would sign away powers they would rather keep for themselves.

It looks like the resignations of Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith have taken the spotlight from Cameron and his £350,000 repayment bill (the mind boggles as to why he felt that it was necessary to claim, as that is a mere 1% of what he is worth). Gerald Warner in the Torygraph has written a good post on the subject but perhaps the government in meltdown is a rather more salient story for the moment.

So how will the Tories actually do in the local elections this time? Will the voters of Lancashire and Derbyshire (to name but two of the councils up for grabs this time round) give the Tories a clean sweep? I’ve been out for lunch up to the neighbouring village of Riseley, and met the local councillor Stuart Munro out delivering leaflets; he didn’t sound as happy as he normally does (he normally claims to have hundreds of volunteers for the party knocking on doors, though I have never seen one out with him) and that’s saying a lot because he did seem rather non-committal as to how it was going. I am lucky in that I can pose as whatever party I want to, having been involved with a fair number of them – I can even be a disgruntled Labour voter, a disgruntled Tory and probably in the near future a disgruntled Green. (I told him not to drop me a leaflet, and that I was voting Green, but no, I still got one. Yuck.) I enjoy that more than being a supporter – or glory supporter – of anyone as it usually elicits more intimate information from all sides and none. I haven’t tried being a LibDem yet but if this keeps up longer and the opposition don’t get their skates on then I will approach the LibDems for the general election, then perhaps after the next election become a disaffected LibDem and slag them off here.

I am the cat who walks by herself, and all places are alike to me. Rudyard Kipling had me nailed J.

Anyway, Clarence is itching to get on with the reading for the Tories, so let the fun commence.

READING: THE CONSERVATIVES at the LOCAL ELECTIONS on THURSDAY 4 JUNE

Situation – VI Wands, reversed

C: The Conservatives are not going to get much of the promised vote here and their moment of triumph is in abeyance because of the poor overall result for national parties. This seeps through to the council elections too – it is already evident that the north is still a fairly no-go area for the Tories, and taking councils there is still difficult. The Salford by-election, held during the expenses scandal, was still a result for Labour, with the BNP coming before the Tories. So any victory is likely to be pyrrhic in nature, in that although they may well come nominally first, the spillage from the national picture is still likely to hit them hard.

Conservative Party nationally – The Empress

C: The party nominally sits in judgement of the status quo and is commanding the same lead in the polls in which it found itself in April and early May, though of course the Independent poll may be more indicative of the mood since Cameron’s mortgage came to light. The Empress is a card which plants a body in a sitting position; it does not necessarily mean complacency has set in but it means that someone is waiting for events to come to them rather than able to direct them. It may not work in this situation where the party needs to overcome the handicap of its own shocking expenses problems and overcome an inertia which stems from before the scandal broke. Patience may help it in some respects, but it needs to combine this with a more dynamic posture in order to look like it would be a successful government.

Conservative Party in the places where people are voting on county councils – Strength

C: Again, not necessarily a bad card but a card in which control and discipline trump external movement, either positive or negative. Strength solidifies the Empress as above, but it denotes a caution and the exercise of restraint rather than a dam-busting exercise in capturing these last remaining councils. Not a bad omen, but not a card which augurs much explosive success.

Results of the vote – II Swords, reversed

C: Not a good card, not an excessively bad one, but nothing to write home about. The balance is disrupted, but this works against the party rather than for it. The rupture in the main firmament has been injurious to the confidence of the party’s activists on the ground; although the government provides the main sideshow this week, the chaos and destruction are only going to intensify when a stalemate is produced as opposed to a promised rout. With Labour already clearing out its deadwood, it makes it more difficult for Foxy to justify keeping his own pilfering politicos, and the damage this could do is to knock over any promising results even from the elections seen as less dangerous to the main parties. Also, if people are voting on local issues, then the Tories may lose the national popularity they have and be forced to confront their own weakness on the local front from the beginning of this year where they have failed to gain local seats from Labour where they ought to be winning hand over fist. Even in Jacqui Smith’s and Hazel Blears’ backyards, they have failed to capitalise away from the glaring national headline poll results. So not a good night for the Conservatives.

Outcome on the night – Queen of Swords

C: The devil is in the detail. The Queen of Swords forces people to look rationally at the situation to find any strengths or weaknesses, but the emotional and subjective nature of the media attention means that anything less than what the Conservatives need to show to win convincingly next year – if it still is next year – will be taken as a sign of weakness rather than as a sign of progress. The Queen forces us to look penetratingly at the whole situation, rather than just react spontaneously to an overall feeling. If the Tories had looked harder at 2005 then they would have seen the result differently. The Tories need to look hard at this result to learn the lessons they need to learn; will they? The Hermit, reversed, says that this kind of introspection is possible and likely, but will not produce a good result for anyone concerned. The devil really will be in the detail, and the Tories will always find a way to do themselves down.

Owlperson: I disagree, Clarence. An alternative reading of these two cards is not that they will – I know the party deeply and know they can be equally blind to success and failure if they want to be, rather than taking both into account – and the Queen says to me that there will be a hard lesson delivered to them but they will choose not to learn it (the reversed Hermit). Although we agree, it is too soon to say that the party will collapse in on itself; after all the result from last night’s reading on the Independent poll was a slightly more positive card, Temperance; because the focus is on the government for now the government will lose more from these elections than the Tories will. However the result will be such that the momentum which the Tories have lost will be only further eroded because the results here will be warped by the times in which we all “live”. The lessons from the elections will be heeded only if they are forced into listening by the press; and what we are all wondering is when or if those lessons will be rammed home by another such poll putting the Tories down to 30% again.

Built in problems/margin for error – IX Swords, reversed

C: The Nine reversed is lessening the fear of manipulation but still shows some suspicion around the results. The Tories would obviously never call foul on any result which didn’t go in their favour, but some of their more vocal blogosphere supporters very rarely have such scruples. The election is more likely to be problematic when the result is known days or weeks before the poll is held. We are past the point at which the postal vote results would be known. The Tories have more reason to fear manipulation than Labour do – judging by the results for this position on the Labour spread – but the fear is lessened by the fact that because the media “know” the Tories are going to win, the fear is negated or pushed to the back of the mind because the Tories may well be benefiting from the theories posited in the Rotten Boroughs articles. (See posts passim.)

Any other factors – The Hierophant, reversed

C: Conventional wisdom overturned. The results are dangerous in that they, like all elections up to and including 1992, are unpredictable in a time of such great political agony as this. There is less ability to predict these results, and far higher stakes than would normally be the case. The period in which the media or the government could tell which way elections would go is over, as witnessed by the Glenrothes by-election in the autumn; the strategists may be deliberately seeding the press with misinformation to make any real result look better; and the element of fixing might be more or less depending on the desire of the media to see change. Polls have plunged for both main parties over the last month; the Conservatives suffered a large hit yesterday and local canvassers no longer seem as bullish as they were when they started canvassing (Redwood appeared in Swallowfield, Louise’s home village) early in May before the scandals had got going and appeared more confident than Stuart did this afternoon on his own. There is no prediction here which will guarantee a win or lose, and the danger for the Conservatives is that their poll results may have changed too late to rescue them.

Outcome in general going forward – The Devil

C: A decisive and destructive influence in all its forms; the Devil always means that the querent succumbs to desires and conceits that are intense and turbulent. The surprise is in the result, which leaves those involved in this reading reeling from the sharp rebuke the electorate give them; and these are the elections which were believed to be relatively immune from national considerations. The Devil is the unleashing of fury and anger in a situation where there needs to be restraint, grace and magnanimity. It can only end in tears.

Hazel Blears is stepping down from the cabinet. What is the betting she was pushed?

My hunch says that the people who have resigned this week have been the ones who have had the messiest expenses of the whole scandal - and that they have realised they have no more credibility left ahead of tomorrow's polls and have done the decent thing in leaving office. I hold no brief whatsoever for this crowd of loonies, but Jacqui Smith's resignation and the resignation of Blears today just gets rid of two grossly overpaid underachievers.

The Star for this shows a kind of hopefulness that with those two troublemakers gone, Labour actually have ditched the problem cases. Whether Alistair Darling - equally damaged - goes too, I don't care so long as it points the spotlight at Cameron's own nest of corruption too - including a big fat cheque for the £350,000 he has made on his house at our expense. Bloodletting may peversely make Brown's cabinet stronger rather than weaker.

Remember that sauce for the Labour goose is sauce for the Tory gander. I don't want an election until all those guilty of this morass of sleaze have been wiped from the face of the earth.

Meanwhile the Torygraph seem to have a vendetta against our friend Mr Howard. Nice one, Michael. Why they have chosen to cover his poor excuse for largesse by making out that his expense claims are anything untoward. The Lovers suggest a need - an almost parasitical need - for the Telegraph to argue this out and that it may reach a conclusion that exonerates him rather than condemns him to the same fate. Reading the Torygraph article, I am hard pushed to see a taxpayer funded mortgage or capital gains, duck islands, moats, or even a Snickers bar. It's nice to see the BBC providing a forum for one of the cleaner claims to be defended as well as getting out the ducking stools or an order of service for auto-da-fe. The Lovers suggest a resolution for Howard that transcends this and enables him to make more choices later about his own future. Would that others were so lucky.

William Hague gets the Paxman treatment.

Reading for this:

Hague - Page of Cups, reversed - a refusal to take Paxman seriously and answer the question properly. Not going to do him any good, as it doesn't do many politicians good to tangle publicly with Paxo.

Going forward - The Star, reversed - again, another difficult encounter which makes Hague - normally fairly trustworthy a figure - look shifty and awkward over something that could be a matter of legal concern.

Effects now - The Lovers, reversed - bound to make up a few minds against him personally and doesn't look good for anything which would see him assume the mantle of leadership, just as Howard was in the wilderness after his Paxo going-over.

Effects later - VI Pentacles - not so bad as the balance remains steady, but no momentum or dynamism in this card means that Hague may find himself becalmed later. In the current climate, not a huge issue and likely to remain steady, but if affairs begin to be scrutinised more closely, it could get difficult.

Effects of the question asked regarding Ashcroft's tax status - VII Pentacles, reversed - likely to undo progress in several key areas as the party moves on into a likely election.

This article was written yesterday before I looked at the Independent ComRes poll.

The title of my blog refers to the yearly cycle which plays out, much like a horoscope, to foreshadow what will or might happen in all our lives and dealings with each other. I believe, thanks to Owlperson’s ideas, that astrology works a lot like a fixed version of the tarot: a system of divination, rather than causation. The casting of a card such as the Wheel of Fortune, which prior to 8 May governed the immediate future in my readings for the political fortunes, does not actually cause the twists of fate. Similarly planets and stars do not affect us personally, but they can give us a clue to what happens. Mars entered Scorpio yesterday and threw my relationships off-balance; or rather, Mars entered Scorpio yesterday and this foretold that my relationships with a special someone would be a bit choppy. After a good night’s sleep I’ve decided not to dump him but to forgive him, just as my horoscope suggested I would. (Maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe not; I was still pissed off when I went to bed, though that was easier than I expected.)

In this way, we find that Taurus usually governs elections – early May is the most usual time to go to the country in the local elections as well as the last general election, and these results tend to be critical points for government and opposition. Until 2005 a Taurean election (as opposed to a Gemini election in June, which usually returns a sitting government) had had the tendency for power to change hands. I got very excited in 2005 as a result, and as my figures (see the Rotten Boroughs articles I posted early in May) suggest, we perhaps should have had a change of government. The potential PM’s £17,000 garden centre bill notwithstanding (though Owlperson is strangely distant on this as if it won’t matter in the long run, and in the mean time Howard, like Butterfill, is leaving parliament anyway, though Owlperson is tugging at my sleeve and forbids me to go further along that line of thought), Taurus should have given us a change as a result. This year, Taurus has not had the outlet of elections to hand us change in that manner, so gave us this chaos instead. (Other years without a Taurean catharsis have been similarly chaotic – 2004 saw the rise of UKIP and 2001 foot and mouth.) There are years of differing intensity and I am not really a good astrologer quite yet. But we have now left Taurus behind – the charging bull – and entered Gemini, the Air sign, which should deliver a vote which actually leaves us more in control of the status quo but also defining the consequences of the expenses scandal and allowing less bean-counting and more defined – and even aggressive – action. I am not sure what is causing this particular year to be so intensely violent, when other Gemini elections have been more tranquil for the governing party – but a Gemini election itself rarely delivers change on any significant level (1983, 1987 and 2001 all cemented rather than winkled out a governing party, even one with increasing levels of robust opposition and after, in 2001 at least, a nationally damaging crisis).

I still don’t believe, however, that the expenses scandal will go away – questions remain for Alistair Darling and David Cameron in particular. Rather, Gemini will begin to discuss solutions – permanent, drastic solutions – to the problems rather than allowing the scandal to evaporate. There is a certain sector of the press talking fatuously about “revelation fatigue” as if we’ve had our fun and it is now time to get back to normal. They may want to – as Owlperson says, they have most cause not to let it get too much out of hand for fear genuine public anger will be unleashed – but the situation in Gemini (openness) leads to Cancer (fluidity in the right directions) and Leo (fiery bursts of energy – normally dissipating in the silly season but this year perhaps a culmination of anger and excitement). The possibility at the moment of an autumn election Owlperson says is realistic but Virgo and Libra are signs in which things begin to solidify again in preparation for the new parliamentary year. Libra in particular is the time of the dramatic shifts in polls which we have seen over the past two years, and the shifts of Libra (coincidentally when the party conferences are held in line with these shifts in opinion) put paid largely to Brown’s desire for an October election (though it was the shift itself that caused this not the actual reason for the shift).

Anyway, this is just by way of saying – prepare for a shift now from revelations to destructive influences on the status quo, but don’t expect a miraculous collapse for Labour: Gemini will not allow this. Instead, the omens do not look good for either party, and I am going to read for these elections and then leave the situation open until Thursday night and Sunday night because I have been warned by my guides that the situation was not as simple as I first thought. Part of being psychic is knowing how to interpret things as detached from them as possible, and although Owlperson is a political guide – I have others with whom I am going to read now – this makes it more difficult to judge the actual events because of conflicting emotions, desires at odds with what I subconsciously know to be the truth, and the rather hurtful moment of truth when hubris hits home. Developing psychic awareness is a process of detaching oneself from the subject of your readings; it’s much easier to do it for things you don’t have a vested interest or ardent love of. Such as Newcastle’s recent relegation to the Championship – I had no difficulty predicting relegation because of the lack of direct relevance to me of the football results. But try it with Boris Johnson or Barack Obama – both of whom I had a gut feeling about, but neither of whom I would have voted for.

So let your gut do the talking – and stand well back. I am using my kestrel guide Clarence for this reading – he is telling me not to write all the meanings down, but I am telling him it helps those reading this to focus on the meaning of the card and it helps me relax my mind while reading, enabling a more accurate forecast to come through. He accepts this...so onwards and upwards.

READING: LABOUR at the LOCAL ELECTIONS on THURSDAY 4 JUNE

Situation – Page of Wands

The Page of Wands is a messenger, usually of good fortune, heralding great events affecting your chosen career. He is energetic, loyal, idealistic, resourceful and honest; the best kind of friend one could hope for. He can represent either the attitude you need in order to accomplish your aims – the part you must play toward someone of greater influence – or the person you should turn to for help to carry them out.

Clarence: this is a first for me, Louise hasn’t used me for a while because I’m not as fun as Owlperson for her and he crowds us other guides out. Now I have a platform, I can tell people here how fun it is to view the 21^st century through the screen of a computer as when I lived 150 years ago we would have marvelled at the technology available – we were tinkers not cybernauts in my day and age. Anyway.

This card is Labour at the moment – the Page here is struggling with maintaining his grip on power (represented by the wands) but they are holding on, in annoyance to their bitter opponents and bitter rivals. People’s hostility is general and widespread, yet Labour have not been obliterated simply because the Tories are in it up to their eyeballs as well (expect fireworks on Mr Fox’s side too due to these results.) The Page struggles but is always cheerful – that is why the card is upright. The good fortune is hidden perhaps in the broad prognosis for Labour, but there are difficulties for all and the government is still in office, if rather battered. A valiant effort, in other words, fought against a rising tide. Full marks for trying.

Labour Party nationally – V Cups, reversed

Unexpected news arrives, and possibly in the form of a surprise visit from an old friend who will life your spirits and suggest new ideas and ways forward. They may also remind you of past events that you would rather forget, but try if you can to learn their lessons.

C: These cards are awfully specific, and I feel this represents the situation revealed by the expenses fiasco, and means that Labour were dumped into it through their own short-sightedness. That is the printed meaning of the card. The more general reading for the Five reversed is that every cloud has a silver lining, and this again comes in the shape and form of the Tories. Simply put, the reversal of the Five of Cups means that the party appreciates the two cups that are still full and is not solely aware of the three that have been spilt. In other words, the message of discomfort under a Tory government still resonates with its core vote but also with a wider spectrum of people and this still counts for something. It may not necessarily translate into votes on Thursday, but since people have hinted that they will vote on local issues rather than national issues, and the Tories have not done well in local by-elections recently (even in Redditch, Jacqui Smith’s erstwhile seat), local issues may pull the party back from the brink. This is just hinting at the many silver linings possible in a cloud this size, but it does mean that Labour may not be toast simply because in many places local will trump national.

I need to stress that what I can say to this card is unimaginable while the government is in such difficulty and that the Tories are just plain nowhere either. A genuinely fair election is not possible until after this scandal escalates and destroys the old order, but we upstairs are working on ways to make sure this goes far deeper than just money; but for the mean time, there is a silver lining here for Labour that the Tories are just as idiotic and chaotic, meaning stalemate rather than a complete pasting.

Labour Party in the places where people are voting on county councils – IV Pentacles

Due reward comes after a long struggle, but you need to shrug off any lingering bitterness or sense of grievance if you are to enjoy it. There is some danger of you becoming a miser. Enjoy your good fortune, but also share it with others who probably did far more for you during the difficult times than you realised.

C: This card usually means “defence” or “defensiveness”, contrasting with the Nine of Wands which has a similar meaning in that it is defence of money, power, or other valuable property. Therefore Labour is defending – successfully – some of its treasure effectively because prior to the expenses scandal it was evident that the Tories were not gaining from Labour unpopularity (viz, the Salford by-election a week or two ago, which Labour held despite the local MP Hazel Blears being at the forefront of the blossoming expenses scandal) – but this card just means defence, not offence, and Labour still stand to lose badly in the places where there is a genuine contest between Labour and Tory. Fortunately for Labour this actually means they can successfully defend northern strongholds (Derbyshire and Lancashire particularly) where the BNP will gain at the Tories’ expense. Labour are not campaigning hard against the BNP for nothing.

Results of the votes – IX Cups reversed

Your success is limited by miscalculations, imperfections, and carelessness. Complacency and an exaggerated sense of your importance spoil what should otherwise be a time of celebration, alienating many who would otherwise support you.

C: Of all the cards in the tarot pack which could represent Thursday night, this is actually the best possible result: just a mild hangover, not a complete rout. As any serious kestrel will tell you, the way to analyse things is through the eyes¸ and Labour still will be able to pick out the successes (in terms of holding on rather than gaining) and make sure the issues are dealt with. The government will still collapse, but not necessarily because of this result, but because of other national and international pressures during this summer.

Outcome on the night – X Swords, reversed

A slight but temporary illusion of success is forecast when the card is in this position. However, misfortune will follow if you do not take advantage of this reprieve and build up your defences against disasters that almost certainly lie in wait just around the corner.

C: The card here is not as dangerous yet to Labour as it looked – it’s ruin delayed, not immediately imposed. Labour have a couple of months at best to make good on this card but it is better not to say too much at this stage. Labour are not done for yet, not even after this result. It means that the Tories will have failed to advance north of the Midlands, on the whole, and although they do conquer a couple of councils there will be fewer casualties than expected. At any rate, disruption and destruction for Labour – and Gordon Brown – lie further on, not now. This also imposes a problem on the Tories as well, because they do fail to advance far enough to ruin Labour’s herd mentality.

Built in problems/margin for error – King of Swords

In astrology the character of Saturn in his benign aspect closely resembles that of the King of Swords. He represents power, authority, and the law, splitting complex attitudes with the edge of his sword. His judgements can at times seem lacking in tolerance of human frailty, but are never unfair. The card usually represents an authority figure that the querent can look to for justice.

C: The manipulation inherent in what she has posted in the Rotten Boroughs articles – which I helped her write – are not now repeated at elections in Britain in general. The Glenrothes by-election was legitimate because it was possible to give the people the benefit of the doubt rather than make them accept the result imposed on them by the press and the manipulators.

Anyway, this election will be decided fully by the people. I can’t tell L what happened to bring the balance back within the system but any result that is a surprise to the media is genuine enough. The ambiguity creeps into the system where the media trail the poll for weeks beforehand and anoint a winner before polling day. In this situation, justice will be done – there will be no manipulation, or, if there is, it will not make a huge difference to the overall outcome.

Any other factors – VIII Wands, reversed

Disharmony, quarrels, and rivalry all threaten to upset your plans. Rushed commitments come back to haunt you, and impatience could lead you into other choices that you will equally regret. Be cautious, and wait for the conditions to change.

C: Labour can always rely on difficulties within their opponent’s camp to work in their favour, and this card suggests that although the chaos around the situation has reached the intensity that has toppled a cabinet minister, this will be balanced out by bloodletting elsewhere because of equal corruption within the opponents’ camps. All this means here is that rushing around finding scapegoats for equivocal results suggest it may turn into a bloodbath but not as a result of these elections. The situation here is of a balloon being let down gently rather than popped – Labour are in danger of going out with a whimper, rather than a bang.

Outcome in general going forward – II Cups, reversed

Disappointment, quarrels and misunderstandings threaten to end in the breakdown of partnerships either in love or work. Beware of rash decisions you will later regret. It’s worth trying to work through the difficulties first.

C: In keeping with the idea that Labour have a chance to hold on here, the future looks dangerous but the results are nevertheless rather more equivocal than originally thought. This card shows a dip for Labour, and a breakdown in personal communication within the Cabinet, but not a complete meltdown. These elections will be better than predicted – still not brilliant, still not earth-shatteringly triumphant. Labour will limp on into the summer – but the really torrid part is still to come. Watch this space, as people say nowadays. Perhaps even Owlperson will be allowed his own slot, but I will do the other readings in this particular series myself.

3 June 2009 - I have since persuaded Louise to use cards without printed commercial meanings. Much simpler.

--Clarence.

 

My guides have given me leave to start this again.

Today's card is the Page of Cups.

Clarence: This is usually associated with learning but here it represents contrition and acceptance of one's fate - the cup is held out to request filling up for the Page's own benefit, rather than acting as a steward to his master. What goes into the cup only today will tell, but with Gordon Brown's cabinet in a mess (for him Death, reversed suggests a dangerous period, one which may ultimately be fatal but one, Clarence says, which will see things utterly collapse elsewhere as well - if he goes down, so does Westminster) and Cameron repaying £350,000 in capital gains tax (for him, The Star reversed - it made a huge impact on the Tories' poll ratings, and Cambo can find no warmth or joy in Brown's own debacle), the Page represents our political class waiting for the public's verdict tomorrow at the polls.

Please vote - it's the only way of sending a message and it may turn out to be the best time to ram that message home to all the incumbent parties. Please also vote as you do in the Europeans for the local elections: independent/minor party councillors can be a lot more constructive at local level than at national level. I still support the big two for government - which one depends on the time the election is held - because we do need governments which are able to do things rather than the sclerosis often associated with weak coalitions. I don't have a vote at the local poll tomorrow, but I would vote Liberal Democrat against the sitting Tory I helped to elect in a by-election in 2005, because somehow Cameron has to repay more than just his three hundred grand pilferings from the public purse. He cannot run the country with any credibility either, and the sooner we get a strong and clean opposition leader who hasn't been fiddling around with his mortgage, the better.

I hear the 31st cheapest is still available.