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February 5, 2021 2:47 AM   Subscribe

 
Full video, committee meeting minutes, Handforth Parish Council website with official notice of allegations of unlawful expenditure of public funds.

This video meets the hype – and exceeds it!
posted by adrianhon at 3:12 AM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


About a decade ago, the chair of my parent's Parish Council, who was a prime example of the Old White Dude behaviour being shown in this video was ousted by the perfectly legal and above board way of...losing his seat in the parish council election to someone who wasn't a prime example etc.. He still complains at length to anyone who makes the mistake of engaging with him in any form about how it was all Illegal! and Immoral!! and Votes! Were! Stolen!!!!
posted by halcyonday at 3:47 AM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


Steel Pulse came uncannily close predicted this meeting's ructions way back in 1977 - just two letters out, in fact.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:49 AM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


David Allen Green answers the most pressing question: Did Jackie Weaver have the authority? – the law and policy of that Handforth Parish Council meeting
posted by adrianhon at 4:27 AM on February 5, 2021 [8 favorites]


The minutes link is now a 404. Which faction has control of the webserver?
posted by automatronic at 4:50 AM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


The R4 Woman's Hour interview with my new hero Jackie Weaver, starts at 19:45. (though there's a good bit about wrestling earlier on in the programme)
posted by Busy Old Fool at 4:53 AM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


Oh, god, they're going to make a film of it, aren't they? With Helen Mirren as Jackie Weaver.
posted by Grangousier at 5:07 AM on February 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


This was such a fucking delight, to watch her shut down those disruptive assholes firmly and completely.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:17 AM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


With Helen Mirren as Jackie Weaver.

With Jacki Weaver as Jackie Weaver, surely.
posted by Panthalassa at 5:38 AM on February 5, 2021 [11 favorites]


Automatronic: Here's a copy of the minutes I saved on Dropbox!
posted by adrianhon at 5:43 AM on February 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


I literally can't bear to watch this. Just the summary of the misbehaviour makes me want to close the browser tab, though I guess that reaction is part of the reason why they get away with it.
posted by Eleven at 5:49 AM on February 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


I am envisioning that they were removed to a tank of ravenous alligators and it's a little better but still has a very bitter aftertaste.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:54 AM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


I wanted to smack the first chairman just based on his voice alone. HE sounded so sanctimonious and self-important.
posted by Alensin at 6:01 AM on February 5, 2021


That David Allen Green article is very helpful for making sense of it all. I was wrong to call Jackie Weaver a "committee member" in my post: Weaver is no other than the Chief Officer of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils, the organisation which the committee has already had to refer the question of the legality of its meetings. It appears she has been parachuted in as some sort of a municipal special agent.

What struck me watching the video is how the first four minutes make it unclear who's overstepping the mark when the chairman is ejected from the meeting; on Twitter last night many at first assumed on the basis of an excerpt that Jackie Weaver was on some sort of power trip. The rest of the video and Green's explanation of it paint a different picture.

The other thing that struck me was that this was the demographic that gave us Brexit: older English people getting worked up about others breaking what they see as The Rules.
posted by rory at 6:02 AM on February 5, 2021 [6 favorites]


I had to bail out at 5:52, when the angry cackling started.

I am on a couple of local organizations' boards, and this is my worst nightmare as a volunteer: someone with an axe to grind and a lot of time will happily burn everything to the ground in order to make a tiny point. A group having to censure or eject one of its members feels like a family intervention: just awful.

Bless you, Jackie Weaver, for being the firefighter who waded into that blazing dumpster.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:06 AM on February 5, 2021 [7 favorites]


I have volunteered for many years and the chairman using parliamentary procedure as some kind of horrible club to get his way will be very familiar to anyone who has ever sat in a board meeting.
posted by winna at 6:22 AM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


Important to acknowledge the 17-year-old who watches Zoom recordings of council meetings for fun, who found the original video.

Why yes, I am still stuck down this Handforth rabbit-hole.
posted by rory at 6:35 AM on February 5, 2021 [14 favorites]


I have a couple of friends on local parish councils; this video pales into insignificance compared to some of the stories I've heard.
posted by pipeski at 6:54 AM on February 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


Pleased to find my good old favorite phenomenon:

Speaker A: Words words more words quiet word louder words many words ranty accusation words. Pause.
Speaker B: W-
Speaker A: Do not interrupt my words! words words words words accusations words.
Speaker B: Wo-
Speaker A: WIll you let me speak! Accusations accusations words words words rants words words words phonebooks phonebooks words -
Speaker B: W-
Speaker A: You keep interrupting! Will you let me get a word in edgewise! I cannot speak! Will you let me express myself! words words words
posted by trig at 7:35 AM on February 5, 2021 [24 favorites]


Truly, trig: silenced all his life.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:59 AM on February 5, 2021


(Thank you, Megami. The topic was opaque and diving into an 18 minute video isn't something I can easily do.)
posted by doctornemo at 8:19 AM on February 5, 2021




explain all you need to know about British politics

They didn't do anything nasty to trans people, so maybe not everything awful about British politics is in there.
posted by axiom at 8:50 AM on February 5, 2021 [9 favorites]


MetaFilter: (unintelligible tantrum noises)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:38 AM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


Came here to post a link about the young man who posted the video online. Covid or not, that lad really needs to get out more.
posted by epo at 12:21 PM on February 5, 2021


Oh my goodness, I know all these people ... Not personally, but in the various avatars they have adopted over my 30 years of working in local government. I saw this earlier today and spent the time I could stand watching it with a funny scrinched feeling in my head that I think probably made me look like someone had asked me to do algebra again.

That is so very typical of a certain type of retired, middle class, white male person - they were once a managing director in charge of office supply procurement and went golfing with the Board once a year and thought their company car should have been from the next bracket up. They gravitate towards parish council politics because they're probably not quite as clever / popular as they think they are with the local big-P political parties, and will never get proposed as a local councillor.

Parish councils are effectively the lowest stage of local democracy and there are a good number of decent councillors on them, but they also attract these gammons. They think they know stuff about things, and can throw their weight around, and are big on back slapping. They think it makes them likeable and good at people things. Then something happens that exposes their dismal grasp on the facts of life - namely, the world owes them nothing and people who don't rely on them for a wage can often say things they don't agree with and suddenly it's tantrum time.

Their nemesis is always going to be a person like Jackie Weaver, who actually knows stuff about these things work and are not daunted by flailing, shrieking would-be members of the Magisterium.

The Parish Clerks of Britain are a doughty breed and are normally (in my experience) terrifying.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 12:49 PM on February 5, 2021 [20 favorites]


Jackie Weaver: "It appears she has been parachuted in as some sort of a municipal special agent. The Winston Wolf of Cheshire local government." According to David Alan Green.
posted by narancia at 1:35 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


So there is a vacancy on the West Ward it seems. You know if anyone wants to join that party. Having an AOL email address isn't a requirement, but you'll be in good company if you do.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 2:42 PM on February 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


Came here to post a link about the young man who posted the video online. Covid or not, that lad really needs to get out more.


Counterpoint: if young people don't shame all these old fuckers, that entire island will be dead in a decade.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:12 PM on February 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


(Ahem. Cromwell purged the Long Parliament; he didn't dissolve it. It wasn't dissolved until 1660.)
posted by praemunire at 10:14 PM on February 5, 2021


Surely Britney Spears will play Jackie Weaver in the movie?
posted by kumonoi at 1:58 AM on February 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


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