Its scarcely credible that this time last week all the pollsters were saying its too close to call and many of the media commentators were scaring everyone to death with the prospect of an Miliband / Sturgeon government which was going to take a chainsaw to Hadrian’s wall, sell Trident to North Korea and generally cause the biggest crisis in Britain since the Abdication.

Last Thursday we had the Uranus / Pluto electoral shock of the century.

” A week is a long time in politics ” so said Harold Wilson in 1964. Interestingly this was the last time a British leader was elected with a Uranus / Pluto transit to his Sun. It was also the beginning of a detailed study of UK politics that enabled Capricorn Research to predict David Cameron’s outright majority victory. For the full tour of the last  50 years see Electional Astrology – How they Try to Control Us, if you just want the final predictions, scroll down to the end of it.

But we all move on so quickly. Just this weekend we had anti Tory riots in London which all the newspapers credited to anarchists. Capricorn Research was impressed, I never knew anarchists were so organised as to pull something together at a moment’s notice.

And poor old Ed has gone from hero to zero. There was a time when Capricorns made natural politicians. Granted these were generally of the unsavoury variety like Mao Tse Tung, Richard Nixon, J Edgar Hoover and Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, but also Thomas Jefferson, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and even Clement Atlee.

But since the downfall of Tricky Dicky was covered so beautifully on TV, politics has moved on. These days having the Capricorn capacity to organise other people and make purely pragmatic choices is no longer enough, you have to look good on the telly as well. And of course no sign looks better than Libra.

Now you may not think that the most famous Libran leaders like Silvio Berlsuconi, Vladimir Putin or Margaret Thatcher were particularly attractive of even that Libran, but they all had a strong sense of an image they wanted to convey on TV.

One’s image in astrology is essentially the province of the Ascendant so perhaps the real masters of this were John F Kennedy and Bill Clinton who both had Libra rising.

So given that Milliband was up against Sun and Ascendant Libra Cameron, he would always have been struggling in the image stakes.

Despite the rather bizarre trend of Milifandom, most people believe that the Labour party probably picked the wrong brother.

David Miliband had a Grand Trine in Water with a Cancer Sun nicely aspected to Saturn and Neptune.

One thing that is quite intriguing is the similarities between his chart and that of SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon

They both have the Sun in Cancer in trine to Neptune. They also both have the Moon in Aquarius opposite Mercury in Leo.

Maybe if David had been Labour leader rather than Ed, the much heralded Labour / SNP pact would have been on from the start.

Another interesting point is that David Miliband would have Pluto opposite his Sun in 2020, so while he may not have won this time round, he would have been ready in time for the next one. Maybe we will have a really bizarre comeback in time for the next election.

Of course, history says otherwise. One thing that Cancers tend to hold strongly to is the supportive nature of family ties. Capricorns not so, they tend to do the politically pragmatic thing.

 

 

Ed has the Sun in Capricorn but its opposite the Moon in David’s sign Cancer. So when it came to it Ed was always able to separate himself from the family ties. In 2010 when the Labour leadership was up for grabs, Pluto was conjunct Ed’s Sun so he got the job even if it meant kicking his younger brother out ( Sun opposite Moon in family sign Cancer ).

Its also interesting that Ed’s Sun / Moon opposition focuses by T Square onto Uranus in Libra, which points to a separation ( Uranus ) in a relationship ( Libra ).

This may also explain why Ed was so quick to turn down Nicola Sturgeon’s overtures and refuse to make a pact with the SNP. Perhaps he could see the astrological ghost of his brother looking down on him from north of the border.

If we look at every really significant election since 1964, Pluto has been in aspect to an important part  of the winners chart in almost all of them.

For Ed Miliband Pluto was conjunct his Sun in 2010 when he was elected Labour leader. This was his peak.

For David Cameron Pluto is square his Sun from 2015 to 16, so this election occurred at the peak astrological moment of his life, just like it did for Harold Wilson in 1964 and Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

Cameron has already said that he won’t seek a 3rd term. Astrologically that makes perfect sense, Pluto will have moved on by 2020 and what he will have then is Uranus being square to his 10th house Moon. The 10th house is the place of career and status, the Moon rules one’s home and Uranus is the principle of change, so this transit is already suggesting Cameron moving out of Downing Street.

Of course at this stage we have no idea who the Tories would put up as a replacement for Cameron in the 2020 election but I’m sure quite a few people would be willing to hazard a guess.

 

 

Johnson’s own Pluto moment was in 2008 when it was opposite his Sun. He was elected Mayor of London. He is due to stand down in 2016 and was elected as an MP again last week. However it would be easy to see that last Thursday was not a great day for Boris as Saturn was opposite his Mars.

Whilst all around him were supping champagne, a fixed smile masked his real feelings that he had probably just missed his best chance of becoming Prime Minister in the foreseeable future.

Astrologically this makes sense as he has no particular transits to speak of for 2020, Saturn square his Moon at the time of the election does not bode well. Johnson would no doubt have been the chief beneficiary of a Conservative defeat last week and would probably already have thrown his hat into the ring for election as the new Tory leader by now but it looks like Lord Mayor of London was as good as it gets.

Instead of Etonian straw boaters its the sound of Labour cloth caps being thrown into rings or at least one being thrown and a deafening silence coming from the other most likely candidates.

Long time favourite Yvette Cooper is probably too busy drawing up new rotas for household tasks and child care for her newly unemployed spouse, Ed Balls, so will probably wait a respectful few days before showing her hand.

Cooper’s Sun is right at the end of Pisces, which means her Pluto peak would have come with the planet in square to her Sun between 2008 and 2010 when she was elected to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

She is yet to declare but maybe her past connections with Brown’s government and relationship with Balls would count against her anyway. She is seen as being old Labour and her media performances are a bit Ed Miliband.

Cooper currently has Neptune square her Mars so her immediate fortunes don’t look great. After all it was Neptune’s conjunction to Ed’s Mars that sent him on a family holiday to Ibitha this week rather than to Number 10.

She may well choose not to stand anyway. This would make sense as her transits for 2020 are quite similar to Boris Johnson’s.

Another possible candidate is Tristram Hunt

 

In his favour, Hunt does look quite good on the telly. His line is that Labour needs to appeal to the centre ground and listen to businesses in order to get reelected.

The big problem with any of these people is that we don’t have birth times. Its very difficult to predict with any certainty when you’re just working from a noon chart, but we have to do what we can.

One thing that Hunt does have in his favour is that if he was born around noon he would have Pluto square to his Moon over the coming year or so.

However Neptune is square to his Sun which is not a great transit for politicians. It often points to an unexplained loss of standing, an ebbing away of popularity. You can’t quite put your finger on the reasons for it, but the ground seems to dissolve underfoot. For Hunt this is particularly appropriate because he has a Sun opposition Neptune natally which suggests that a promising career might have that kind of flavour at some point anyway.

Hunt does have Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn opposite his Mars in 2020 which sounds interesting, but his current transits don’t really suggest he will get the chance anyway.

One of the favourites yet to declare is Andy Burnham. He is probably the most experienced potential candidate but is also associated with Gordon Brown’s time. He was Health Secretary and is strongly connected with the campaign to protect the NHS from supposed Tory vandalism.

Burnham is the most leftwing candidate, and would probably get trade union endorsement as leader.

 

 

Andy Burnham is Capricorn Research’s favourite to get the leadership. This is not because we share the Sun and Moon in the same sign, its because Pluto is about to give its own endorsement by conjuncting his Sun over the next couple of years.

The one problem with this is that history could well be seen to be repeating itself.

After all Ed Miliband was the left wing choice out of the various candidates put forward in 2010 and was elected largely on the strength of union support. Ed was also a Capricorn with Pluto conjunct his Sun at the time.

As we have seen Pluto moved on, and it will for Burnham too. If he does get the leadership, 2019 is going to be a difficult year for him as Saturn is conjunct his Sun and Neptune his Mars.

Jupiter is conjunct his Sun at various points in 2020 which is definitely a good thing but its difficult to know whether that will be enough offset the difficult aspects in the run up in order to swing a victory.

The one player who has actually thrown his hat into the ring is Chuka Umunna, although its definitely not of the cloth cap variety. As he’s a City lawyer, perhaps he’s actually chucked his wig in.

Umunna is better at tapping into the the aspirations of voters to get on in the world. He is the son of a Nigerian immigrant who came to the UK with nothing. He’s definitely more New Labour than Old.

But perhaps from an astrological perspective the most important thing is that he’s a Libran.