Martin Bashir secured BBC TV’s ‘scoop of a generation’ when he interviewed Diana, Princess of Wales, in the throes of her marriage breakdown with Charles. This was broadcast on 20th November 1995 (advertised time thought to be 8pm). Bashir has now been accused by a Judge-led inquiry of serious deception in obtaining the interview. The line of symbolism for the event brings Diana’s intercepted 1st house Saturn at 27Cap48 into focus, with Broadcast transit Uranus 27Cap22, shattering all protocol. Bashir’s coup is shown by his Sun within a degree, reinforced by the major TV inception chart for the BBC (see below) which has Pluto at 28Can46, 4′ from the opposition to Bashir’s Sun, his fame made and ruined by TV. Diana was desperate to get her story out before she would be effectively censored by the Royal Family. The heart of the matter seems to turn on the Sun – Saturn theme of the ‘knight in shining armour’, where the glorious Sun comes to save Saturn from its prison. This is how Bashir must have appeared. The South Node suggests a fallen knight bearing soiled gifts, and behind it the Plutonic power of the Media, compounding ‘fear, paranoia and isolation’. More to come, and serious consequences for the BBC, may take several years as Pluto, currently at 26Cap39r, passes the significant degrees, including its half-return for BBC TV in 2023.
There are strains for the Monarchy, too. The interview was secretly recorded on 5th November, Guy Fawkes Day, commemorating the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot which sought to blow up James I and his Parliament.
BBC horoscopes discussed: see article by Maggie Hyde from COA Bulletin no.2 1988
* added data (faint original): BBC Corporation Sat 1 Jan 1927 0h GMT London
Appended comments on symbolism:
Most astrologers glancing at Martin Bashir’s natal chart in the context of the current scandal will be struck by the close Moon-Neptune conjunction in Scorpio. This disreputable combination begs to be tied in with the methods used by Bashir to gain access to Diana through her younger brother Charles, the current 9th Earl Spencer. Connections can always be scraped together with wider orbs and multiple aspects, but we cannot ignore the fact that at a basic transit and synastry level there appears to be no conventional and simple indicative contact to point the way. A ‘wrong chart’ is not the answer, either – this configuration tries hard NOT to be brought into our current framing of events. Some other theme may be in play, which time may (or may not) tell.
The evocative imagery of the Knight in shining armour for the Sun in contact with Saturn in a female nativity comes from a comment I heard from Liz Greene, who stresses its particular significance for the woman in relationship to a man. (GC)