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Handforth Parish Council staged their first Zoom meeting yesterday (February 17) since their chaotic December meeting went viral earlier this month.
The quiet Cheshire town’s Parish Council has become known to millions of people across the world after a clip from their end-of-year meeting showed council members arguing, insulting one another and even ejecting people from the online discussion.
- Read more: Here’s the viral Handforth Parish Council meeting reimagined as a musical and an indie song
Yesterday evening’s Zoom meeting was watched on YouTube by a peak audience of over 3500 people as interest in the Handforth Parish Council continues.
Over 80 members of the public, who were able to join the Zoom meeting, interrupted the council meeting throughout, with phrases such as “read the standing orders, read them and understand them” from December’s meeting being quoted and one attendee playing the Benny Hill Show theme song throughout.
Jackie Weaver, who was one of the stars of the viral Handforth Parish Council meeting, did not actively partake in the meeting.
“I would have been perfectly happy to have been involved this evening but I don’t think it’s right for Handforth,” she said (via BBC News). “Now the clerk is back it’s absolutely right and proper they’ve taken their proper place, which they’re perfectly competent to do.”
Last night’s meeting also saw some tense disagreements between members of the council, with Councillor John Smith and chairman Brian Tolver clashing over the events of the council’s viral meeting in December.
Smith defended Weaver at length and described Tolver and others’ comments towards her as “abusive”.
In response, Tolver said: “I have much to dispute in what Councillor Smith just said. I don’t want to bore everybody but he was wrong on just about every point he raised.”
A member of the public later asked Tolver if he would like to apologise for his actions in the December meeting. Tolver responded by asking for the person to be muted.
The initial Handforth Parish Council meeting was lampooned by comedian Munya Chawawa earlier this month. Andrew Lloyd Webber also dedicated a piano parody to Jackie Weaver, while Weaver herself joked that she would want Helen Mirren to play her in a future biopic of the viral council meeting.
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