leading up to the first labour council

When the local party was reformed, Rob immediately joined and began to really enjoy ward meetings.

Because the very extreme left had been banished from the party by then so the left of the party wasn't that leftish so I felt quite comfortable with what was left of the left-with what was allowed to come back in. And in fact the meetings were great fun; very loud, very opinionated, worth attending. A general committee meeting, a constituencey level meeting was worth getting on that committee to participate in the arguements about...because we were still in a Tory government weren't we so it was easy to argue


As well as a Tory central government, there was still a Conservative Council in Brighton, as it had always been...though not for much longer. However, the date this happened eluded bothMarigold and Rob

 

photograph of the Eagle pub dated 1975
'In 1986 Labour finally won control of Brighton Town Council. It may be that Brighton has been rather better governed since Labour took control but the impression is of a political party which has inherited a machine and does not quite know what to do with it. The most damning indictment is that the assumption-of-power has seemingly left Brightonians quite unmoved' ( Hill, Rocky: 1991)
The Eagle Pub in Gloucester Road - a popular venue for meetings since it had a large room at the back, at the time