The troubled Comart school was an easy target for councillors at the family and schools committee as they blamed everyone and everything (except themselves) for its demise.

As Tories joined forces with Labour councillors, it took only a matter of minutes to support closing the school.

There was much dismay at the meeting when a wayward councillor calling himself a Green betrayed the principle of all good councillors by standing up and fighting for what most people wanted, the continuation of education on the site - but no other councillors were prepared to tolerate this strange behaviour.

A protest of parents and children was quickly dispersed. As you would expect in a democracy, it was necessary to send two burly security guards to disarm a child who was armed with the dangerous weapon of a party popper.

Such was the outrage felt by members of the public trying to express an opinion and then daring to protest, Conservative councillors have written to leader Michael Howard calling on him to take action.

In a written reply, Mr Howard said: "I am grateful to the Brighton and Hove Conservatives for bringing this to my attention.

"It is a sad day when people in this country believe they can express an opinion, worse when they think they can protest. There seems to be a 'party popper culture' developing in the country and it is always worse around Christmas and New Year.

"We will take action against anyone who threatens our democracy by letting off party poppers."

-Kevin Dale, Brighton