Saturday 25 April 2026

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Friday Bite 17 April 2026

Deadlock

“We’re close to a deal with Iran … that’ll give us free oil, free Hormuz Strait… everything will be nice… and I think the oil price will come down to lower than it was before.” Donald Trump, 17 April

“Castles in the air…The camel dreams of cottonseed, sometimes gulping it down, sometimes eating it grain by grain.” Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, 18 April

IT HAS BEEN three months since the Sun conjoined Pluto and kicked off the most turbulent passage for the globe since the end of World War II. On 19 January, as leaders gathered for the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos, President Trump was threatening to take control of Greenland, in the process endangering the NATO alliance. There were genuine fears that member countries were going to have to go to war with one of their own – an alliance that had kept peace in the west for seventy-five years. In the event, Trump backed down, but the incident marked the end of the trust that had existed between western nations and the United States since the 1940s. President Macron warned of a “shift towards a world without rules” while Canada’s premier, Mark Carney spoke of “the old order never coming back”.

Davos was a watershed moment.

Here is a picture of that moment.

As you can see, all the personal planets are clustered together within a five-degree span. Venus is conjunct Pluto with the Sun, Mercury and Mars to follow shortly thereafter. Over the past twelve weeks that cluster has moved steadily forward through Aquarius, Pisces and Aries conjoining Saturn and Neptune and squaring Uranus along the way. On 28 February, some eleven days after a solar eclipse in Aquarius and as Mars squared Uranus, the United States and Israel attacked Iran.

The aforementioned cluster remains but now occupies a thirty-two-degree span. As the war began Mars conjoined the IC (America’s natal Moon) and squared Uranus in the area of partnerships and the “house of open enemies”. Push had indeed come to shove.

At that very moment, the world – the entire world – was plunged into the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. It might not seem that way at the moment. The cost of living may be rising and the price of oil, gas, diesel and petrol rising, but so too are the markets rising and only a few pundits are talking about potential food and industrial shortages, flight cancellations and power cuts; barely anyone is talking about what the lack of helium and ammonia could do to the microchip industry or the countries that could descend into famine in a matter of months due to the lack of fertilizer for crops.

So here we are three months on from the start of this impressive line-up of planets, now occupying roughly 30 degrees of the zodiac. (I mention this because to my mind it is the cluster of planets that is the prime-mover and the signature upon these unprecedented events; the signs it occupies are of secondary significance.) In the span of time from the start of Operation Epic Fury to now, the US military has obliterated Iran’s navy, air force and much of its infrastructure; two tiers of its leadership are gone, including one Supreme Leader while another lies gravely ill, and its economy is in the Hadal Zone. More than 3000 Iranians are dead – 43,000 if you count those killed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. While in Lebanon, 2454 are dead, 7658 wounded and hundreds of thousands are homeless.

So why hasn’t America won the war?

If I knew about the risk to the world posed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Mr Trump and the administration most certainly did. It was in Iran’s gift to close the Strait, which it did on 2 March, hours before a total lunar eclipse in Virgo. Since then, the waterway was briefly reopened on 17 April (New Moon in Aries: Mercury conjunct Neptune), but has remained closed since 18 April. In the meantime, on 13 April (Mars conjunct Neptune) the United States launched a counter-blockade of the Strait. Now, all traffic in both the Strait and the Gulf is at a standstill.

A fragile cease-fire was agreed on 8 April, but after a set of peace talks hosted by Pakistan (12 April: Mars conjunct Neptune) ended in failure, the prospects for another have proved elusive.

On Tuesday, the US president extended the cease-fire deadline to this coming Sunday and then withdrew it completely. And today, Pete Hegseth, Secretary of war told us in a briefing at the Pentagon that America has “all the time in the world” and it is in Iran’s interests to come to the table.  Hegseth added that the United States did not need the Strait of Hormuz because it has its own abundant supply of oil. What Hegseth did not mention was that the administration has only until 1 May to continue its war in Iran.

There is a legislative challenge facing Trump in that a foreign offensive can only be maintained for sixty days without the approval of Congress. Which brings us to the first of May and the full moon in Scorpio.

As I put together this Friday Bite, Venus has just conjoined Uranus, the Sun is about to square Pluto and Uranus enter Gemini. There is a make-or-break quality to these influences, but if we go back to January and the Sun-Pluto conjunction, Trump backed down from his threat to take Greenland, so he may well have no option other than to make a deal with Iran sooner than later. Maybe Congress would approve the continuation of the war, but with 66 percent of America against it, such a prospect is by no means a slam dunk.

If we’re looking for an astrological reason why Operation Epic Fury was not the piece of cake the administration believed it to be, it lies in the position of the Moon at the start of the war. At 27 degrees Cancer 54ʹ, the Moon does not form an applying major aspect to any planet or point, therefore it is void of course and its intention will not be fulfilled. Plus, 27 degrees of Cancer is the United States’ Pluto; the inference being that the war will affect America at root level and transform the country’s standing in the world. What is also interesting is that the Trump administration continues to maintain that the goal of the war is to deny Iran any means of developing nuclear weapons, and if there is one planet synonymous with nuclear power, it is Pluto.

The full moon of the first of May cuts across Iran’s MC-IC axis, and since all full moons end chapters, this might just be the sign of the end of this unadvised war. I sincerely hope so because the longer it continues, the greater the pickle we’ll be in by the summer.

Friday Bite 17 April 2026

Bitter-sweet

“Out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind rises with some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose,” Franklin D. Roosevelt, 2 July1932

I WOKE UP this morning to calls from the Leader of the Opposition and other prominent politicians for Sir Keir Starmer to stand down as prime minister. The Peter Mandelson scandal – the gift that keeps on giving – had again reared its poisonous head, this time due to reports that the disgraced former minister had failed his security vetting clearance. We are given to believe that the Foreign Office overruled the decision in order to ensure that Mandelson could take up his post as ambassador to the United States. Apparently, Sir Keir was not informed of the failed vetting, and the civil servant responsible, Sir Oliver Robbins has been duly sacked. Meanwhile the prime minister is currently in Paris for a meeting with fellow world leaders aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

An endeavour that became pointless within an hour of the start of the meeting because Iran has just reopened the waterway.

In March, I commented on the Aries Ingress chart for the United Kingdom and Uranus’s position in the tenth house of government, suggesting that heads would roll during this quarter, and I didn’t rule out the Prime Minister’s being among them.

It is going to be exceedingly difficult for Sir Keir to finesse this crisis, but not impossible. Given that the crucially important council elections are only three weeks away, and the process of replacing the prime minister would be a lengthy one, he may remain for the time being. However, in this cosmic climate almost anything is possible.

We only have a sunrise chart for the prime minister, so we have no way of establishing the all-important angles of the chart, which is why I’m going to place greater emphasis on the horoscope of his premiership. Nonetheless, currently, Pluto is conjunct his natal Saturn, the nodal axis (8 degrees Pisces-Virgo) is conjunct his natal Chiron-Jupiter conjunction and opposing his natal Sun-Pluto conjunction while Uranus is squaring his natal Uranus, all of which suggests his position is precarious. You might even say, he’s a dead man walking.

Sir Keir and the Labour party took power on 5 July, 2024 at 12:19 in the afternoon. Here is a picture of that moment.

Two degrees of Libra rises and 3 degrees of Cancer is culminating. At this point in time. Neptune at 2 degrees of Aries is conjoined to the Descendant and squaring the MC-IC axis while Saturn at 7 degrees Aries is squaring the Moon. Neptune is a great planet to have on an angle if you’re starting a religious enterprise, opening an oceanarium or a ballet school, it’s not a great planet to have on an angle if you want your administration to be strong, invulnerable to scandal and to weather all manner of storms.  Plus, Neptune at the start of his administration was conjunct the Great Britain Moon – the people of Britain had no chance. Starmer’s premiership began on an applying Mars-Uranus conjunction which is why there have been so many U-turns and upsets since he has been in power. I also notice that at the time he began his leadership, Jupiter at 9 degrees of Gemini was conjunct the United States’ Uranus, which may explain why the “special relationship” has sustained so much damage.

WHILE BRITAIN’S HOPES of restoring its former glory look bleak to say the least, Hungary is opening a new and potentially marvellous chapter. On Sunday, the Hungarian people voted in their millions to oust prime minister Victor Orbàn – an authoritarian leader of the most extreme and corrupt kind, friend to Putin and Trump – and replace him with a centre-right leader Peter Magyar.

The above chart is based on Emperor Karl 1/IV’s renunciation of the throne. There are others from the November 1918 period, which brought an end to the Austria-Hungarian empire, but this one makes a lot of sense given the monumental events of the past few days.

Zero degrees of Aquarius rises with 28 degrees of Scorpio on the Midheaven. Pluto is now moving away from Hungary’s Ascendant but Uranus is currently conjoined to its IC – the homeland. Plus, all the new moons since last October have occurred at 28 degrees of the various signs, the most recent today and the most significant, the solar eclipse of 17 February at 28 degrees of Aquarius.

The decline of the Austria-Hungarian empire began with the death of Emperor Franz Joseph in November 1916 but gathered momentum at the end of World War 1 and the famine that followed, all of which took place on the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Leo. (Yet another regime to fall under this particular configuration which brought an end to the Russian tsars and ushered in Communism.) And here we have the Orbàn regime collapsing under the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries and the rise of a liberal democracy, or at least a democracy.

Fortunately, we have a time of birth for the new prime minister, provided by himself, and to the minute. And where might Saturn and Neptune be? On the Midheaven of his natal chart. As you may note, natal Mars is on the Midheaven and conjunct the Sun in Pisces while Jupiter and Saturn conjoin the IC. It is a powerful chart, not least because of the Kite configuration that is generated by a Grand Trine involving the Moon, Uranus and Mars and the Midheaven and the opposition to Jupiter and Saturn. He has risen to power on his Uranus opposition, so not only is he undergoing a complete change of life but the change Hungary has so long sought rests in him. Last but not least, his Mercury is to be found at 28 degrees of Aquarius, squaring Hungary’s MC-IC axis and the focus for the almighty eclipse on 17 February.

Hungary was the thorn in the European Union’s side since Orbàn blocked every vote for financial assistance to Ukraine and every vote that worked against Russia’s agenda. While Orban looked to Russia and Putin, Magyar looks to Europe and the West.

The United States, under Trump, had a vested interest in Hungary’s authoritarian regime, which is why both Rubio and Vance made personal appearances in Hungary urging the people to vote for Orbàn. Hungary was the model for Project 2025. On his way to the election, Magyar revealed that Orbàn was using government money to finance CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), a major networking event and ideological trendsetter for the radical right in the United States. This organization has been instrumental in celebrating Orbàn’s Hungary as the centre of the effort to destroy liberal democracy in Europe and America.

Which is another reason this has been a bitter-sweet week for the Trump administration. After the failure of the talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan, Iran continued to retain the upper hand by keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed and making it increasingly difficult for the president to find an off-ramp to a war that he believed would be over and done with in days. A war that is threatening economies and livelihoods all over the world.

On Monday, the United States began a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. On Wednesday, Israel launched a devastating attack on Lebanon, threatening the fragile cease-fire. On Thursday, Trump held separate meetings at the White House with Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyaho. And on Friday, Iran opened up the Strait of Hormuz.

So, here we are on Friday with a little more hope in our hearts. However, however, the astrology is not pointing to a happy ending in the coming days. Indeed, the week ahead is a veritable minefield.

The above chart is taken from the perspective of Washington and therefore its influence on the United States as a whole. I have inked in the connections the chart makes with the US horoscope and Donald Trump’s natal chart, and all of them are problematic. I have gone into some detail about this chart on my new video, but suffice to say, with Mars approaching a conjunction with Saturn (Sunday), Mercury conjoining Saturn and Mars (Monday), Venus conjoining Uranus (Friday) and the Sun squaring Pluto (Saturday) yet more turmoil is on the horizon.

I cannot say how exactly these influences will manifest in terms of events; all I can say is that these are not signs of celebration and certainly not peace in our time. Donald Trump is by no means out of the woods, personally and politically, and the tremors are likely to be felt throughout the administration, if not beyond.

It’s not pretty.