On television the other night was a programme called 'New Labour's Gambling Addiction', about the government's policy of encouraging 'super-casinos' and casinos in general to spring up across the UK as a 'wealth-creation' technique. Whilst there is criticism of the 'gambling panic' too, the astrology generally backs the idea that this rise in gambling is indeed detrimental to the UK, designed as it is purely to increase revenues for the government in a 'get rich quick' manner, rather than a longer-term, slower-but-surer, substantial innovation-based way.

During Neptune's transit of the UK's Venus the government produced a new gambling law to allow this industry to get bigger. The higher potentials of a Neptune transit to Venus are more about all the various art forms, creative expression, inspiration and imagination. Gambling is, quite simply, one of the lowest manifestations of this sort of transit. Encouraging gambling as a way of increasing government revenue is a lazy cop-out for this transit.

The potential of an astrological configuration like this is tremendous. Live8 barely scratched the surface, but it gives a flavour of how humanitarian this aspect can be at its best. We could look back at the 1840s for other examples of what we could do with a transit such as this, and in an article on the Astrology for the 21st Century website written over a year ago a look back at that decade was indeed taken [link is here: http://www.astrology21.co.uk/c1ukneptunevenus.html]

The issue of the coarsening of society is arising. The Celebrity Big Brother arguments, the so-called ''Chav' culture', the so-called 'ASBO culture', the prison issue, are all coming together and leading us to the point of choice. Is it really so ridiculous to ask that we treat each other with a measure of dignity? Not deference, not fawning, not forelock-tugging, not passive victims of others' aggression, not looking down on people who are 'uncouth' but simply acknowledging that, if we want to live in a shared space with a reasonable amount of pleasantness and co-operation, we must have a broad and general consensus on how we are going to treat each other, and surely humanity is at the very heart and soul of that question?

An article in the Guardian sums up the less constructive social and economic uses we have so far made of this Neptune-Venus transit: "Alongside the bullying there is a materialist crassness that we might have hoped would have receded after a decade of centre-left government. In most ways, the show-off materialism of the 80s has been supercharged."

As well as creating new legislation, the government has set up a Gambling Commission, supposedly to 'regulate gambling in the public interest'. Leaving aside for a moment the obvious fact that this is nonsense, let's have a look at the astrology, which is, after all, what this web log is about. The commission 'froze in time' the Neptune transit of the UK's Venus in the 5th house. In effect, this tells us that the net result of the Gambling Commission - even if their intentions are good - will not be to regulate the industry at all, for Neptune is the very antithesis of regulation. Neptune symbolises the action of the Commission on the UK's leisure industry (Venus in the 5th house) which is to to loosen the industry, to blur boundaries, to encourage spiralling debt, to run rampant, to enlarge and enlarge without limit, to cut away all common sense and precautionary measures, and to do all this in the self-deluded state so typical of human beings and hubristic politicians.

In short, Neptune is the planet of addiction, Venus is the planet of leisure, put them together and do you have regulation and safety? No you do not. Let's look at the rest of the Gambling Commission's own statements about its purpose and 'mission':

"It does so by keeping crime out of gambling, by ensuring that gambling is conducted fairly and openly, and by protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling. The Commission also provides independent advice to government on gambling in Britain."

This is, once again, nonsense. Where there is Neptune, all is not what it seems and very little is transparent or 'open' - on the contrary, things tend to be conducted in secrecy. As for independent advice, Neptune is a planet of subjectivity and projection, not objective reality.

The Commission - no matter its good intentions, which of course paved the way to hell in any case - has been created during a peak of this Neptune transit, and thereby resonates with Neptunian issues. Protecting vulnerable people is very Neptunian, and children are indeed associated with the 5th house, however the question is does the chart show the capacity to protect? Neptune is not a protective planet because it has no real boundaries to keep out harmful influences, so we have to look elsewhere in the chart. The only other planet in the Gambling Commission chart that aspects the UK's Venus is Mercury, and this again is a planet that does not impose boundaries or regulation nor is it of a type that symbolises the bringing of safety. It is, rather, a planet of fast transactions and trade. At its worst it is the trickster.

The Gambling Commission's Saturn would represent its regulatory function - does it aspect the UK's chart in a way that symbolises the regulation of gambling? No, not at all. Over the next few years as the Labour government's plans are put into practice, Neptune will in fact be opposing the UK's Saturn, symbolising an undermining of the safeguards and lifejackets that we have in place. We can change this course, but only if we abandon these kinds of self-destructive plans.

To return to the social aspects of this transit, upon which the economic side is built: If we - consciously or unconsciously - take the view that we are nothing more than customers, buyers and sellers, making transactions in a giant market machine, then we will have precious little human dignity to speak of. If we consider ourselves and each other citizens in a shared civic space, with equal rights and equal need to be acknowledged as people in our own right, rather than as commodities to be hired, bought, sold, sacked in accordance with the dips and rises of our 'market value', we will then, quite naturally and without struggling against each other, go about creating a society that is based on a different model.

Ultimately, the choice is ours, but if we tally much longer we'll miss this opportunity and have to wait until other transits come along to signal another crossroads in our societal direction.