Parish pump politics and the Handforth Council video
Clerk of Council
When I tell people that I am the chair of my village parish council, they nearly always jump to a gag about the Vicar of Dibley. It seems this stock response will have to be updated, thanks to a meeting of Handforth Parish Council Planning & Environment Committee which has gone viral online over the last few days.
The Parish Council meeting, conducted on Zoom, starts badly, when one councillor swears under his breath as the Clerk tries to start the meeting. It goes downhill all the way from there, with the Chairman and Vice Chairman getting booted out for refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the meeting. When a councillor calls for civility, the meeting erupts into hysterical laughter. Other highlights include the words “You have no authority here” being screamed and councillors being ejected into a virtual waiting room, like rugger players chucked into sin bins at a particularly vicious rugby league derby.
The fact that the Handforth video has gone viral demonstrates that the meeting has touched a nerve with the public. The main reason is that it is very funny as an example of the Zoom culture we have had to get our collective heads around in the last 12 months. A councillor stating “Let me formulate an official reply to that letter” and then being interrupted by the sound of a loo being flushed is comedy gold. Quote of the episode has to go to this: “He did not attend any meetings for six months. The fact that there were no meetings is irrelevant.”
The video also reminds us that local politics matters. It is in meetings such as this, up and down the country, where local communities function (or fail to function). The emptying of dog poo bins, wayward allotment tenants, potholes and street-lamps (issues I spend most of my time on) really matter. Neighbourhoods need the small- or bloody-minded to make stuff happen and it should always be remembered that Parish councillors are not paid.
The meeting also shows us that local democracy — or any type of democracy, for that matter — cannot properly function on Zoom. The meeting is clearly the second round of an argument which started at a previous virtual meeting. I am almost certain things would not have got as heated if the councillors were face to face. Body language cannot be translated on a Zoom meeting; the collective roll of eyes when someone starts on a rant, the unease when something inappropriate is said, interventions made (or avoided) through the use of eye contact. The Handforth councillor responsible for the seething, Basil Fawlty style explosion — “READ THE STANDING ORDERS, READ THEM AND UNDERSTAND THEM” — needed to be subtly nudged to calm down, way before he got to that climax… but that cannot happen on Zoom.
More worryingly, the viral clip demonstrates a discourtesy which has infected the body politic at all levels. The way Westminster ripped itself apart during the Brexit process has not helped. In the same way that children ape a Premiership footballer’s “gamesmanship” when winning a penalty, amateur local politicians ape the professional political class in the House of Commons. There has also been the creeping impact of political discourse taking place on polarising social media platforms and the subsequent deterioration of respect between different viewpoints. Whatever the reasons, there is a general coarsening of values and disrespect for other beliefs, which this video demonstrates — albeit in graphically comedic terms.
As we count the cost to our political system, whether due to the eruptions caused by Brexit, populism or Covid-19, we need to rediscover a civility we once at least aspired to in debate, even if we failed to achieve it very often. If you look at the comments the Handforth video has collected internationally, there is a lot of “This is so typically British”. We are in danger of the rest of the world laughing at all the UK’s political apparatus, including Westminster, in the same way that the UK has been laughing at Handforth.
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