EXTRAORDINARY precautions were taken by Sussex Police in the run-up to the Conservative Party Conference in 1988.

The party returned to Brighton, which four years previously had been the scene of one of the worst terrorist atrocities of modern times.

IRA bomber Patrick Magee had left a bomb with a long-delay timer in a hotel room close to the one later occupied by Margaret Thatcher.

The explosion killed five and injured many more, including the wife of Cabinet minister Norman Tebbit, but Mrs Thatcher and her husband Denis escaped uninjured.

Opening the conference the day after the atrocity, the Prime Minister received a standing ovation for saying: “That is the scale of the outrage in which we have all shared, and the fact that we are gathered here now – shocked, but composed and determined – is a sign not only that this attack has failed but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.”

The IRA’s chilling response was to issue a statement which read: “Today we were unlucky but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.”

Photographs from The Argus archive reveal the lengths the security services went to four years later on the party’s return.

In the photograph above, at least ten helmeted policemen are visible milling around security cordons and crash barriers blocking the streets around the Grand hotel.

Elsewhere on the page you can see the front of the Brighton Centre similarly well-protected.