Should you avoid ψηφισάτω (666) on Halloween?

Until this post was written Blood and Property had a symbolically significant number of posts in its archives.

Wikipedia gives some of the background on the source and meaning of 666. However none of it's that scary, at least not in a supernatural kind of way.

But with Halloween impending and Blood and Property sounding like the title of a horror movie it seemed sensible to push past the number of the beast.

It provides an excuse to revisit October 2009 when Blood and Property asked Hackney politicians if they had ever had a brush with the supernatural. Should the operation be repeated?

Back in 2009 several Hackney politicians replied but some have moved on, like the former leader of the Conservative group who had ghost troubles in a property in Stoke Newington.

Now there are lots of new faces on the benches in Hackney Council and their supernatural views remain uncharted meanwhile older hands may have updates. (Today's Financial Times 'exposed' a potential Conservative MEP as a ghost hunter and expert on the paranormal).

So would it be in the borough's best interests to recalibrate the ghost index? Or did Meg Hillier have the right attitude to Blood and Property's idiotic questions?

Latest on Hackney occult

Otherwise Ancient Hackney is keen to address the devil's work in your area. The most recent post (a lengthy piece of research into an advertising campaign for New Age Games on Hackney Downs) contains this reassuring comment: "It never surprises us when we discover occult symbolism contained within government literature, so on seeing The Venus Map... our response amounted to nothing more than a raising of the eyebrows."

And something on Hackney UFOs too: http://hauntedskies.blogspot.com/2011/10/hackney-ufo-1970-source-material.html

More Hackney UFOs

With pictures and movies - none of which are convincing.

De Beauvoir UFOs/unsuccessful Hackney candidate/Asians don't vote for black candidates?

UFOs in Hackney? Apparently the skies over De Beauvoir are full of them. Albert, if you ever read this, what was it you saw?

UNRELATED:

A piece from Operation Black Vote mentions Hackney Cllr Patrick Vernon's short-lived attempt to become Labour candidate for Leyton and Wanstead. According to OBV, Cllr Vernon was a favourite but didn't make it onto the shortlist. Another Hackney councillor, Sophie Linden, did make it onto the shortlist but lost in the end to John Cryer.

According to the OBV report, the fate of another black candidate later in the selection process suggested that there may be a divide between black and Asian members of Labour Party's BAME (http://www.bamelabour.org.uk/) - which is supposed to fight for more black MPs. OBV claims that Asian Labour Party members supported a white candidate over a black candidate once their Asian colleague was ruled out of the contest.

Operation Black Vote reports that supporters of the Asian candidate, Ahmed Shahzad - who happens to be head of BAME - "proved decisive in sealing the win for (John) Cryer, provoking dismay among supporters of (Terry) Paul who had won substantial backing among a cross section of rank and file party members, but significantly failed to win the second preference vote of Shahzad’s supporters, who were mostly of Asian origin."

The OBV report quotes one anonymous Labour Party member: "It’s an absolute disgrace. Totally shameful. He [Shahzad] has got his position in the party as a result of representing Black members, and what does he do? He stops a good quality Black person becoming an MP. I think his position as head of BAME Labour is now untenable."