Hove used to be one of Britain’s joke towns in much the way Tunbridge Wells, Basingstoke and Wigan still are today.

Known for pink gins and blue rinses, Hove was fusty rather than feisty. It was known as a cemetery with lights.

A standard joke was that people came to Hove to die and then forgot what they had come there for. When the town hall burnt down, meetings were, most appropriately, held in the museum.

Hove always stood in the shadow of its brash neighbour, Brighton, which was twice as big and 50 times more famous.

A Well Hove Actually club was for people who, when asked where they lived, replied “Brighton – well Hove actually.”

Yet somehow it managed to avoid Brighton’s clutches and remained independent until finally merging in 1997.

The worst thing you could ever say to a confirmed Hovian was that the place should be renamed West Brighton or that the combined city should be called Brove.

Hove liked to think it was a cut above Brighton. It put up signs at the border announcing that it was a distinguished resort until some joker went round changing the word to extinguished.

Politically it was decrepit. Right up to the 1970s, half the council seats were so solidly Tory they were not contested and some long-serving members never fought an election.

Sometimes there were no Labour councillors at all and when two arrived, one was impossible to tell apart from the Tories and the other was a window cleaner who was never the same after he had fallen off his ladder.

The main object of the council was to spend as little money as possible and for a few years it levied a nil rate. Yet there was a ratepayers’ association that wished to reduce it further.

It had almost no regard for heritage. Hove sold museum treasures given to the town in perpetuity by its citizens. It wanted to pull down Brunswick Square and the ramps at Adelaide Crescent.

Famous writers who lived in Hove such as Ivy Compton Burnett and Patrick Hamilton said how much they loathed it.

The Hove Parliamentary seat was formed in 1950 and was safely Conservative for more than 40 years, apart from the 1973 by-election in which Des Wilson for the Liberals came surprisingly close to victory.

Hove’s new Tory MP Tim Sainsbury, a dutiful minister, was a member of the supermarket family and was so rich it must have been hard for him to understand what it was like to be an ordinary shopper on an average income.

But by the time he retired to spend more time with his money, change was afoot.

Brighton was making inroads into Hove with hardly anyone noticing.

Firstly Labour captured control of the borough council in 1995 and two years later it won the Parliamentary seat.

“Now I know we have won,” said Tony Blair as the result flashed up early on a television screen.

Hove reverted to being Tory in 2010 thanks to the hyperactive Mike Weatherley, who described himself as a liberal Conservative, but at this year’s General Election, Labour won it back in one of its few gains.

Many people found it remarkable that Hove was the single splodge of red amid a sea of blue in the south of England on political maps of Britain.

While Hove proudly paraded Peter Kyle as its thoroughly-modern and openly-gay Labour MP, his party could not win either of the Brighton seats.

Kyle’s victory was an obvious indication of how much Hove has changed. It has benefited from being next to Brighton but is not as barmy.

Brighton may revel in declaring itself an independent state, telling the census that thousands of its citizens’ religion is Jedi, or electing a Green MP. The new Hove is home to nationwide celebrities such as Fatboy Slim and Adele. It is both tolerant and trendy.

Church Road has now overtaken Preston Street as the city’s road of restaurants while the two miles of seafront are second to none for promenading.

It is no longer a laughing stock and for the first time is starting to outshine the place next door. If you want to irritate Brightonians, tell them it should be renamed East Hove.