We may laugh, but civic life needs such gatherings
LET’S FACE it, many of us are in need of a good laugh these days and I therefore propose that a national vote of thanks be moved for everyone at Handforth Parish Council in Cheshire.
For those of you who have missed the rumpus surrounding Handforth’s now notorious virtual Zoom meeting, I suggest you look it up online and thoroughly enjoy the mayhem.
The stand-out moment, among many, comes when council chairman Brian Tolver boldly declares: “You have no authority here JackieWeaver!”
In response Ms Weaver, the chief executive of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils who had been called in to act as clerk, removes Mr Tolver from the call, exiling him to a “virtual meeting room” rather in the manner of a routed Napoleon being packed off to Elba.
“There is no way of stopping him from calling himself clerk. Please refer to me as Britney Spears from now on,” she drily declares.
There are various other moments of comedy, including numerous technical glitches and a councillor who complains about the disrespectful behaviour being told that this is rich “coming from you, from Birkenhead”. As far as one can discern, nothing of substance actually gets decided at all.
The characters on display – the overbearing ones, snobby ones, subversive ones and sensible ones alike – could have stepped out of a classic British sitcom. It is Ever Decreasing Circles meets Dad’s Army with a dollop of Vicar of Dibley thrown in for good measure.
NO DOUBT it will, as they say, put the town of Handforth – population a little over 6,000 – “on the map”. In my early days as a young newspaper reporter, I recall covering several parish and town council meetings at which factionalism and personality clashes were deliciously present, like this.
But when we have finished chuckling it would be good to remember a serious point as well. This is that those who step forward on to the first rung of local government perform a vital public service. Far more than those further up the tiers, they are in touch with the little things that play such a big role in determining the quality of life in their communities.
If you want to press for a shelter with seating at the bus stop, or to tackle the scourge of parking on wet verges, then in rural communities your starting point will be the parish council.
While outlandish Nimby-ism or excessive insularity do crop up, the desire of people to take responsibility for and devote time to helping their communities is to be applauded. It is this very same spirit that has surely motivated the springing up over albeit nothing quite this past 12 months of so many neighbourhood Mutual Aid and WhatsApp groups that have created vital support networks – looking out for the lonely and turning dormitory towns back into proper communities.
How you have coped with the pandemic is probably determined at least as much by how active your local community is as by any of the grand schemes drawn up by Cabinet ministers and top Whitehall mandarins.
David Cameron sensed this more than a decade ago when he launched his vision of the “Big Society”, which recognised the importance of local community initiatives. Indeed, so strong was his zeal for devolving power that he called the 2010 Tory election manifesto “An invitation to join the Government of Britain”.
Yet it turned out that local initiative could not be forced from on high – it needed to emerge under its own steam. Where it does manifest itself strongly, does it sometimes tip into busybody behaviour? Undoubtedly yes. Is that a risk worth taking to avoid the horror of everyone ending up living in their own little silos of seclusion? Undoubtedly yes, as well.
IWOULD like to imagine that before too long Brian Tolver and Jackie “no authority” Weaver, along with the rest of the cast of the Handforth eruption, will be able to get back to proper meetings around an actual table.
There are doubtless many issues still to be resolved – from Hobnobs versus custard creams to more substantive matters about traffic rat-runs or excessive planning applications that may unite them.
Perhaps they will repair for post-meeting drinks at a local pub and sit at two different tables, eyeing each other warily: the superannuated Sharks and Jets of East Cheshire.
In any case, if they did not exist someone would have to invent them to wage war on life’s niggles and give us a fit of the giggles. Just remember that behind such meetings is important community work.
‘The desire to devote time to communities is to be applauded’