Astrology for the 21st Century

Judging by their statements in the media recently some MPs seem to have forgotten that they are obliged to abide by a code of conduct if they want to hold this particular public office.

No, wait, they haven't forgotten, because some of the currently-known-about abusers of their privilege are sort-of quoting from it in the hope it'll get them off the hook:-

"14. Members shall at all times ensure that their use of expenses, allowances, facilities and services provided from the public purse is strictly in accordance with the rules [emphasis added] laid down on these matters, and that they observe any limits placed by the House on the use of such expenses, allowances, facilities and services."

The problem with that is that it's only one section. There is more than one other section that they're in breach of. Section 15 is a pretty fundamental one:-

"15. Members shall at all times conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public's trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute."

If only they all acted in accord with that!

Here's another:

"9. Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest."

You read it right, it said 'in favour of the public interest', i.e. the public interest comes first.

I don't think that refusing to release this information was putting the public interest first, despite the claims of the now-gone Speaker and Andrew Walker on behalf of all the House in their taxpayer-funded legal bid to prevent us receiving this basic information about where our money goes, of 'national security' as one of their beneath-contempt excuses for not revealing the addresses of MPs. The House's attempt to preserve this so-called 'national security' and 'privacy' was going to have the curious effect of covering up outright fraud.

How about another:

"Accountability Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office."

And another:

"Selflessness Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends."

So when they say they're within 'the rules' they're being very selective about which rules they're claiming to be within, aren't they?

And there's still the valid response of why should they be judge and jury over their own pay and performance. Being judge and jury over your own public office activities is surely one of the biggest god-like 'perks' that exists in a society, and therefore one of the most dangerous powers a society can lend to a public office-holder since it encourages them to feel that they're in a different league to public servants, not answerable to the public they are meant to serve.

Yes, there's a department/office that deals with breaches of this code - the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards -  but don't worry, it was de-fanged early in 2002 when the office holders started taking their job seriously and the government hounded out the then-Commissioner, Elizabeth Filkin. Her crime was that she investigated their corruption and they didn't like it, so they got rid of her.

But that's probably okay-ish (well, not really, given the other sections of it) under this code because it only explicitly forbids leaning on members of the Committee on Standards and Privileges (CSP), not on the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards (OPCS). The OPCS comes under the CSP therefore surely requires the same protection from this kind of 'lobbying':

"19. No Member shall lobby a member of the Committee on Standards and Privileges in a manner calculated or intended to influence their consideration of a complaint of a breach of this Code."

Welcome to the Mother of All Parliaments.

And we all know that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), like the other Acts that give us access to governmental/council information, is only effective if MPs, councillors and civil servants are fundamentally honest in their work. John Wick, who is the person who went to the press with the expenses information, has said that the government had intended to provide, under the FOIA, a twice-redacted version of the data:

"Mr Wick said: "There was an un-redacted version and two redacted versions. And the briefing I was given is the fees office had sent them back twice for MPs to cover and take things out.[It was] not going to come out as you have been publishing it, because you'd get the third redacted version."" - Source: BBC News

If that's not deliberately conspiring to deceive and even defraud the public then I don't know what is.

Any MP claiming to not be part of this mess needs to be able to show that they haven't breached this code. For instance, if you were aware of what was going on but either didn't raise it as a formal complaint or if you did but your efforts were thwarted and you then didn't go to the public and blow some whistles, can you really claim to be upholding standards in public life, valiantly championing the public interest?

And finally, in case you were thinking 'this is supposed to be an astrological blog', yes there's some astrology to bring into all this, but it'll have to wait :-)

Looking at the chart for the EU Parliament elections due to be held on the 4th to the 7th of June (the exact date varies by country), two things stand out.

The first is that the current Jupiter-Neptune conjunction in Aquarius (for those readers interested in the planetoid Chiron, it's actually a triple conjunction of Jupiter-Neptune-Chiron) is at right angles to the Moon-opposition-Mars-Pluto in the EU chart. A mixture of expansion and dissolution, some would argue. Growing dissolution? Growth that dissolves? Dissolving growth.

Jupiter and Neptune both deal in the business of hope and vision. We can expect claims of a new start, a new vision, a new hope. A new hype, more like. Venus being on the MC of the European Union's chart adds to the PR exercise, glossing over the unpleasantness and portraying everything as positive, spinning whatever happens as a 'victory', even if it's a comprehensive drubbing.

Jupiter-Neptune are also the planets of religious belief. The EU has a religious crisis close to its centre. It's possible it'll enter a new phase.

On all these issues the keynote is tension and crisis, since the aspects involved are squares. Issues will be faced head-on.

If we want to bring Chiron into this picture, it says something about problematic areas that we keep returning to, all to no avail. That's the EU all right.

Saturn will be trine the EU's Uranus-Neptune conjunction, which is the planetary pair that symbolises the core of the EU dream. This transit is about consolidation, solid ground, reality. It speaks of a desire to incarnate the dream, to bring it down to Earth and give it form and substance. To build institutional structures that embody the spirit and concept of a united European continent.

With Uranus in trine to the EU's Mars-Pluto conjunction there is a sense of lighting the blue touchpaper and standing well back. Action is sparked easily, both rebellious action to liberate from oppression, and autocratic action to quell dissent and enforce a more powerful will.

That's all to the EU's chart though.

The EC (formerly named the EEC; the name was changed in 1993 and is likely to change again if the EU Constitution is eventually forced upon us) remains active and so we must take its chart into consideration.

In the EC's chart Pluto is heading for a conjunction with the Sun, just as it is in the UK's chart. Although it's a few years away from exactitude, it's within orb and will become exact within the term of this Parliament that we're electing next month. The short explanation of this transit is that the EC is going to die, and then be resurrected in a new form (just as the UK is). What that form will be, nobody can know - life is lived forwards and unfolds organically, not predictably in its details.

The EC is going through a rare Pluto-trine-Pluto transit, reflecting a deep, fundamental change and death/renewal process. This transit also symbolises power and the desire to increase it.

Transiting Neptune in semi-square to the EC's Sun reflects something altogether more nebulous. Aspects between Neptune and the Sun can indicate increased popularity, but they can also signal a time when popularity declines due to disillusionment. The semi-square aspect tends towards the latter. Where Neptune is concerned, any increase in popularity is often temporary and caused by an increase in projections, rather than based on something reliable and tangible. This type of transit often correlates with feeling undermined, directionless, redundant.

There's much more to the charts and transits but this will have to do for now.... will probably return to this topic over the next few weeks.

 

To see which countries vote on which days, click this link:-
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/welcome/headlines.htm?language=EN&ref=20090525STO56248&secondRef=0