The five personality types you find at every parish council meeting
As Jackie Weaver of Handforth becomes an overnight sensation, we assess the cast of characters found at similar events across the country
5 February 2021 • 2:22pm
If a film about Handforth Parish Council is not yet in development, it’s only a matter of time. Already there are T-shirts bearing the slogan this gloom-sodden lockdown cried out for: “You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver.” Yes, overnight, one formerly obscure meeting clerk from the Cheshire Association of Local Councils has become a cult hero.
Confused? Then you haven’t been watching the incredible scenes resulting from a parish council meeting conducted over Zoom in December. When footage emerged this week, the meeting quickly went viral. Trapped in our homes and running dangerously low on entertainment, a grateful nation seized on the greatest accidental reality show recorded in recent times. It had all the essential ingredients of an early series of Big Brother (before they filled the house with lunatics and moved it to Channel 5): the angry men convinced of their righteousness; the long-suffering woman refusing to rise to it (that’d be our Jackie); the unscripted chaos and passion. What more could we possibly ask for? As more than one wit on Twitter put it, who needs Netflix?