AS a relative newcomer to Brighton (and as a conscientious Argus political columnist) I’ve been spending my evenings doing the hustings rounds — mostly observing but, on a couple of occasions, chairing.

It’s been an invigorating experience. Politics in Brighton is many things, but dull it ain’t.

It’s no coincidence that the local parliamentary seats are all attracting national attention — Brighton and Hove’s three seats are all marginal, as is nearby Lewes, and adjacent Shoreham is a UKIP target.

Nor is it coincidence that control of the council has gyrated wildly from overall Labour control in 1999 to Labour as the largest party, but without a majority in 2003, then to the Conservatives in the same position in 2007 and to the Greens in the same position in 2011. And in 2015... who knows?

So why is the politics of Brighton so lively and unpredictable?

The full answer would probably require a PhD thesis but here’s my attempt — based on detailed research involving standing at the entrance to the Pier, licking my finger and holding it up against the wind.

To begin with there’s the basic demographic make-up of the place. The city encompasses some of Britain’s most affluent areas and some of the South’s most deprived, with a great deal in between.

Then there’s its fantastic creative side — it’s no coincidence that we host England’s largest arts festival.

Brighton also claims to be the country’s most ‘wired’ city — more people registered online to vote here than anywhere else and similarly we are the country’s gay capital with the highest percentage of people living in same sex partnerships.

It’s also an area that has always attracted, how shall we say, ‘characters’.

The legendary journalist Keith Waterhouse once described Brighton as a town that always looked like it was “helping the police with their inquiries”. And it’s always tolerated, indeed, welcomed individuals.

At the Argus hustings on Thursday, for instance, I was in the bar of the Thistle, chatting with the Monster Raving Loony’s local candidate in Hove, Adam Gzunder Campbell, and no one batted an eyelid.

Politically the rise of the Green Party in Brighton is a case in point.

Again, on the basis of no research but lots of chat, it seems to me it’s a political phenomenon that symbolises the Brightonian reflex of nose-thumbing the conventional.

This all makes for exciting politics, particularly for journalists and other window-shoppers but is it good for the city and surrounds?

Traditional party politics can frequently be pretty boring, as left and right slug it out in what can look like a tired old dance routine.

But behind that routine lies real differences in approaches to problem-solving, which essentially is what politics is about.

On the right there’s a fundamental belief that most problems are best sorted by individuals pursuing their own interests through the market; on the left there’s an equally fundamental belief that most problems are better dealt with collectively than individually.

That’s what makes Brighton such an interesting political case study.

It’s crammed with individuals (often with a capital I) who broadly believe in collective solutions but have great difficulty in agreeing what these should be, or at least feign to not agree.

But behind the ‘excitement’ of Brighton’s politics are the real lives of the city’s inhabitants.

On the one hand we have the glitz of the Lanes and the North Laine, on the other we have, for instance, a city with 21,000 people on the council’s housing waiting list (almost 10% of the population) and the number of working-age adults who have no educational qualifications is, at 22%, more than twice the national average.

Despite this cleavage, and again using my privileged position as a newcomer, I have to say that (apart from the bins) I have been impressed by the day-to-day running of the council (but then I am a refugee from Barnet).

I recently complained about the lack of street cleaning near where I live, and whoosh that improved; and when I asked the council to remove a nearby rusting bike frame, double-whoosh, it disappeared.

So come the elections, will the local politicians we elect, who mostly favour collective solutions, be able to deliver on the many challenges they face?

I detected two possibly positive straws in the wind at the Argus hustings I chaired.

First, amid the arguments aired (passionately but politely) by the speakers, all seemed to agree that the Brighton and Hove Economic Partnership, as a cross-party body, had been working well.

And secondly, the contribution that probably drew the loudest applause came not from the platform but from an audience member who called on the party leaders to work collectively together, for the greater benefit of the city.

And who made this contribution? None less than the Monster Raving Loony’s Gzunder Campbell.

It will probably get him expelled from the party, but it made for a very Brighton end to the evening.

Ivor Gaber is Professor of Journalism at the University of Sussex