(Pocket-lint) – As lockdown progresses and news reports continue to bear distressing news, we’ll look for anything to lighten the mood.
Stay-at-home dance crazes on TikTok, Bernie Sanders’ most magnificent mittens, and an obsession for “how it started, how it’s going” snapshots have each given us a good giggle. However, they pale into insignificance with the exploits of Jackie Weaver and the Handforth parish council.
Raging all over Twitter right now are clips of a 10 December 2020 Zoom meeting between councillors descending into chaos, with Weaver is attempting to maintain control as clerk.
Normally mundane sorts of affairs, UK parish council meetings generally discuss library opening times, dog muck in the public gardens, or whether or not a new KFC should be allowed to open in the village. This one seemingly acheived none of that.
It does, though, give us some cracking one-liners to plast all over the internet: “you have no authority here, Jackie Weaver” and “read the standing orders, read them and understand them” immediately spring to mind.
Ironically, the Guardian suggests that Weaver was appointed clerk to maintain order during council meetings after reports of previous poor behaviour by attendees. And, after she kicks the chair, Brian Tolver, from the Zoom call for his conduct, it’s easy to see why.
However, she manages to own the last word herself. After Tolver changes his username to “Hadworth PC clerk”, she amusingly retorts, “Please refer to me as Britney Spears from now on”.
Apparently, there will soon be “You have no authority here!” t-shirts made up. We’ll be in line for one, that’s for sure.
Writing by Rik Henderson.
