No doubt you’ll have noticed the rather Quentin-free nature of the online Argus in recent weeks. I know many of you, too many to mention, cherish my incisive analysis and trés sophisticated take on Brighthelm circa 2010. However, the outcome of the so-called “democratic” elections left me needing time to sufficiently inhale the reality of the situation on the south coast before exhaling my much sought-after thoughts.

Over two months have now passed, time enough for me to accurately get a handle on the vibe in a post-election Brighthelm. A Brighthelm which, in two out of three constituencies, decided to daub its cobbled twittens and grand squares in Tory Blue, leaving Brighton Pavilion to fly the flag for the real, liberal and truly right-on Brightonians. Indeed, flanked by Tory Kemptown on one side and Tory Hove on t’other, Pavilion is the Green organic hummus filling betwixt two slices of stale Tory white bread.

As a dyed-in-the-hemp Hanover resident myself, I can walk tall, having had a small hand in history by pushing Caroline Lucas, the only MP to ever look good in a beige pantsuit (ironic sexism, yeah?), all the way to Westminster.

However, there ain’t no denying that Kemptown, in particular, has undoubtedly let us all down. Under dark Conservative skies, their quirky bijou tea-shops look rather less quirky not to mention a lot less bijou, their gay bars less far gay and their boutique hotels significantly less boutiquey.

Rather less surprisingly, Hove-ites embraced Toryism in all its materialistic splendour. Indeed, behind the freshly-painted Regency square facades, exclusive mews homes and pseudo-liberal media-professional smiles lies a right-wing heart, beating in time with David Cameron’s Nu-Thatcherism.

Admittedly the differences between the Tories and Nu Labour are as difficult to spot as those between the Jedwards. (In fairness to the gruesome Irish twosome, they play with fake Ghostbuster guns while Labour train their real gun sights on Afghan wedding parties, egged on by warmongering Conservatives with shares in arms companies). However, one would have expected the Brighton electorate as a whole to make a step to the left of Nu Labour, not a shuffle to the right.

Speaking of Hove, it seems that even the Argus blogs have become infected with a particularly virulent strain of Toryism. Check out "Reluctant Housewife" Alice Wright’s recent blog on corporations and you will dig my jive and, hopefully, vomit at the corporate-ass-licking cut of her blogging jib.

One can imagine her, as we speak, gobbling her free fast food burgers and fries, couriered to her swiflty after the fast food bigwigs read her psycho-phantic words. I refuse to name the corporations that HoveHousewife fellates in her Toryblog, so let’s call the fast food company BcDonalds.

She continues to gush forth on the likes of the Bapple BiPhone, Diet Boke, Bisney and Bicrosoft (yeah that’s right grey-suited corporate marketing drones, I refuse to play your odious game). And yet, the online Argus allows such appalling product placement? No doubt they are all in on it together.

Argus football blogger Tim Hodges is another whose laddish banter is has more than a whiff of Eau du Thatcher. And presumably (and unfortunately), there are no doubt plenty more Tories skulking about in the cyber-undergrowth of the Argus blogs.

In my dismay at the choices made by two-thirds of my fellow Brightonians, I decided to steer clear of Kemptown and Hove for at least the near future. Indeed, I sit here, tapping away on my laptop, in a stylish (independent) North Laine eaterie, surrounded by drifts of angular, pierced, cutting-edge media creatives, enjoying the pseudo-anarcho-vibe and the top notch frothy coffee. It feels liberal. It feels like Brighton.

I urge you to follow my lead and boycott Kemptown and Hove and support the people and businesses of Brighton Pavilion, the true, liberal, beating heart of our great city.