Does David Cameron Feel Up to the Job?

King George II

David Cameron. Plus ça change

My children like to slide down the bannisters singing a song which they find utterly hilarious. The chorus goes like this:

"Born to rule over you, King George 1, 3, 4 and 2 You had to do what we told you to just because our blood is blue."

It's about Britain's king Georges, but it makes me think of the coalition government that's running the country right now.

Then it's not so funny.



It's even worse when The New York Times says pretty much the same thing – and points out that the austerity measures of the coalition have actually made the economy worse in the past year. 

This is really, really serious. But if, like our beloved leaders, you have spent your entire life wafting around in a bubble of privilege, you may have no idea what serious feels like. It seems to be taking some time for them to wake up but they have now.

So how was Prime Minister David Cameron's 45th birthday last week (Oct 9)?

Safe to say, he's had a tough year with that grumpy old Saturn sitting right on his Sun for most of the time. I'll bet he feels like he's aged about 100 years in the last 12 months. Not such a fun 45th then. It also implies that he's felt stuck and lonely for the past year.

And Uranus (rebellion, shock) is transiting opposite his Ascendant, so his partnerships may have been more upsetting than reliable. He's going to have Uranus transiting through that seventh house for quite a few years to come so he'd better get used to that feeling of uncertainty. As well as Uranus bouncing into his 7th house of open enemies and partnership, his progressed Moon is there too.

His partnership with the Lib Dems is going to be shaken, that much we can be sure of. But it's from this new partnership that Cameron is likely to gain strength and ideas.

Some of his other, much more long-standing, partnerships will also take beating, especially his long friendship with the Chancellor George Osborne, who has a chart that (even without a birth time) scares the silly it I look at it too hard. Who wants the guy in charge of the money to have an exact Jupiter (big) Neptune (fantasy) conjunction in Sagittarius (yarn-spinning) exactly (all in 1°) opposite a Gemini (story-telling/lying) Sun. Not me.

Uranus demands that you re-examine the part of the chart which he transits. The question being asked of Cameron now is who are your friends and who are your enemies?

His birth time is reasonably accurate, which means that not only has Uranus been zhuzhing him, but the UK's natal Uranus is exactly on his ascendant. You could interpret this as: he was born to be PM in a time of great change. If that's the case, then he needs to get with the programme, because as far as I can see, he's just more of the same.

His natal Venus is also exactly on the UK Ascendant at 7° Libra, which is very close to his natal Ascendant. (Should have been obvious he'd win the election really.) Clearly he identifies strongly with the nation - that's a good thing – and maybe he even loves poor Blighty. It means he has a personal stake in seeing the country thrive. (That may sound obvious for a Prime Minister, but I can think of certain other leaders who, when it came down to it, did not feel personally invested in UKplc.)

But with Saturn transiting the first and his Venus and his Sun, he's felt insecure ever since he crossed the threshold of 10 Downing Street…and then there's Pluto…

Cameron (2nd from left, top) as member
of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford.
Will he choose class or country?

Pluto blocks (and violently unblocks). Pluto is ploughing through the part of his chart that houses his deepest sense of order. The dark lord is down in his 4th house close to his IC (roots, sense of firm foundations) and firmly squaring his natal first house Venus. I think he feels blocked psychologically, hampered by some inner demon. He's feeling deeply that things are not supposed to be this way.

He floated effortlessly from school to Prime Minster on a cloud of privilege and self-belief. Everyone's always told him how clever he is. And now?

Cameron has a Moon-Jupiter conjunction: he's a very emotional man. Yes, in Leo, it's a sign of feeling like a king. Cameron assumes privilege as a birthright. But Leo is also about being like a child. He may have felt that he ought to be PM, but I bet when he got down to the real business of government, when all the show business had stopped, he was filled with self-doubt. Up until  then, it had all been playing, imagining – now he has to do the real thing.

And he doesn't really think he's up to it. He's finally reached his goal, ascended to the throne that is rightfully his – and found that he doesn't have any idea what to do next. All the stuff he thought he knew has turned out to be wrong.

Last time I wrote about Cameron, it was just after his father died – and I noted that despite living a life of pampered privilege, he's suffered a lot of grief which makes him emotionally vulnerable. To read that piece click here. But this is not a time for crippling self doubt and soul searching.

His country needs him. He urgently needs to pull himself together and fully embrace the fact that he is Prime Minister. It's a lonely job, so get used to it, Dave. The times call for greatness not political point scoring.

I'll tell you this for free: as a nation we are about to see our debt balloon out of control – and if you think our earning power is reduced now, just wait until Saturn goes into Scorpio in 2012.


Here's this'll cheer you up.