left councillors linking with the campaigns by parents and teachers against the education cuts, and with campaigns to save other council services.
In Hove, where I am standing, the Tories have run the Council as their own private fiefdom for a generation, with largely ineffectual opposition from a small right-wing Labour Group.
They are pushing ahead with a plan to sell off the housing stock to a housing association and the local Labour Party is pledged to stop this if it gets control in May.
Despite its genteel image, Hove features on a number of deprivation indices, with a large elderly population and higher than average unemployment.
Superstores
The Tories have spent their time handing over land to superstores and failing to oppose road developments. They have no policies to deal with poverty and unemployment.
It is now highly possible that they will pay for this by losing control of the Council - something which would have seemed impossible until now. They are not even standing candidates in five of the thirty available seats.
The left in Hove Labour Party has done an enormous amount of work over the last four to five years and it is largely the left's initiatives which have been the basis of party activity.
It was the left which organised public meetings to oppose the housing transfer and ran a campaign against the closure of old people's homes in the area. As a result a number of left candidates have been selected as candidates in the elections.
The other important element in the local political scene is that the government has decided that Hove and Brighton are to merge to become a large unitary authority.
This is likely to mean massive upheaval and possible cuts in services and a threat to the jobs of perhaps hundreds of workers in the present Hove, Brighton and East Sussex authorities.
Counter-weight A strong left presence in the Hove Labour group will act as a counterweight to the Tigal-wing dominated Brighton group.
There is scope for the left in local government and it should be campaigning in these elections on a platform of no cuts in jobs and services, no to CCT and an end to attacks on party policy by our leaders.