PEOPLE who think all politicians are only in it for the money should have met Bob Cristofoli.

Here was a man who was in charge of spending millions of pounds when leading Brighton Council but whose own lifestyle was modest.

Much of it was spent in a small house in the Hanover area where he looked after his father until the old man died. The area is now rather trendy. Bob was not.

He started political life as a Liberal but along with some colleagues saw no future in the party. They joined the Conservatives instead.

Bob was a rousing speaker when young and after one particularly fluent address to the Tory faithful, I jokingly compared him with Spiro Agnew, the right wing American politician who was famous for his oratorical flourishes.

He took this in good heart and rapidly rose up the Conservative ranks, becoming a councillor who specialised in housing.

Bob was different from the mainly Establishment figures who dominated the Brighton Conservatives in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of them were rich, successful businessmen used to getting their own way. Bob had a low-paid job working for the Hove department store of Maples and used to answer the phone.

He was determined to see that all Brighton’s 13,000 council tenants were decently housed and properly represented through their associations. Many tenants’ leaders were a tough bunch who made life difficult for councillors but Bob earned from them a grudging respect.

He played a big role in the decision to replace 1,000 ageing council houses in Whitehawk with 1,600 homes and flats built both by the local authority and housing associations. Learning from mistakes in Whitehawk, Bob and his colleagues decided on renovating existing stock when the Moulsecoomb estates were due for improvement.

But times were changing in Brighton and Tories were losing their grip after 130 years in power. Labour, who had almost won power in 1973 when clearly unprepared, were a much more formidable force in the mid-1980s.

Clever councillors, many of them with a university background, made sure Labour would be effective. The Tories lost control in 1984 and Labour secured a majority two years later. It was ironic for Bob that for two years the balance of power was held by the Liberals whom he had left a couple of decades earlier. Bob was in the middle of all this upheaval as Tory leader and later as mayor. It was in that role that Bob fell out with some of his colleagues. He believed the mayoralty should be politically neutral and that when he had the casting vote at council meetings, he should have the best interests of Brighton in mind. Other Tories believed that in desperate times, Bob should have always voted for his side. A few were vehemently against him.

Always believing him to not be a true Tory, they sneered and sniped at him in an ugly and unacceptable manner. Bob, a courteous man, never responded in kind but must have been deeply hurt. He left the council young for a politician and never returned.

The Tories would have still lost Brighton if he had been there but they sorely needed someone of his stature during their long years in opposition to help their few remaining stars.

As an experienced but by now neutral figure, he was often called on by the council to chair difficult meetings, especially those involving tenants.

My wife Sue was then working for the radio station Southern Sound. She asked him to comment on local election night and he was brilliant.

Seven years ago, Bob suffered a severe stroke while alone at home. He was not discovered until four days later. It was remarkable that he survived but his speech was affected and he could not walk.

At the Adelaide nursing home in New Church Road, Hove, he was a firm favourite with staff and had many visits from loyal friends and relations. The last time I saw him a few weeks ago, he rather touchingly asked for a photograph of Sue with me and this I soon provided.

Although declining in health, he was determined to reach his 80th birthday a week ago which he did, dying three days later. He did a lot for Brighton and the best the borough did in return was to name a block of flats in Whitehawk after him. But you won’t find Cristofoli Court anywhere. Instead he insisted it should be called Robert Lodge, knowing that the tenants would prefer this.

It was a typically thoughtful gesture from a man who proved to be nothing like Spiro Agnew. Sue and I will miss him and so will everyone who knew Bob.