Leftie places outside of London??

[katerinaemalina]

Out of interest are there any leftie/arty Guardian reading non daily mail places to live within reasonable commuting distance of London? Can only think of Brighton. Rest more DM zone e.g Sevenoaks, TW etc. where do the lefties go??

[AliceWChild]

The people's republic of Sheffield.

Goldthorpe looked pretty leftie around the time of thatcher's funeral.

[KenDoddsDadsDog]

Fuck me no charlieandlola I work there. The main attraction is a Greggs next door to another Greggs!

[charlieandlola]

KDDD- merely suggested it as SS returned a Labour MP in the by-election last week, former division of MillibandD, so must be a bit Leftie. Even with all the Greggs,

[KenDoddsDadsDog]

I know

[iheartdusty]

Yes to Lewes, deffo.

St Albans?

[PosyNarker]

Oh FFS. I am slightly to the right of centre. I live in a suburb of anoth town which is known a 'red' . I can honestly say that it doesn't make a huge amount of difference unless I wanted to join the community council (and believe me I've thought about it because there are far too many hippies with nice but unsustainable IDE).

[pootlebug]

Well I'm in zone 3 and my local council is labour. My household and many of my local friends buy the guardian....but I'm not sure you'd consider it 'traditional' leftie-land....

[greenformica]

Stroud and surrounding areas - although many an hour and a half by train? Much much much further afield Hebden bridge and Totnes

[peggyblackett]

Stroud. Leftie central.

[Wuldric]

Has it ever occurred to you that you might be taking politics too seriously? I mean you could move to Barnsley, where if a donkey were to stand wearing a red rosette he would get elected (and some might argue this has already happened) your next door neighbour might be a card carrying member of the BNP.

[peggyblackett]

Ha xposts greenformica

[OnTheNingNangNong]

Totnes. A few hours commute by train to London but its so very leftie and snobby

[BikeRunSki]

at Alice

Oh yes re: Thatcher funeral. DH is a site manager in Mexborough, and they were on skeleton staff that day. Much of the workforce ex miners who'd been carrying a day's leave for about 5 years to go out drinking on that occasion.

[BikeRunSki]

Sheffield is of course known as the Red Riding.

[katerinaemalina]

Argh bit scared! Sorry I probably didn't post well enough. What I was aiming for was just a general "there seems to be more right wing areas in the commuter belt region of London. Are there many leftie areas?" Wasn't saying there are no leftie areas outside of London or that London is one big leftie area it just raised my interest as I read an article which said something like "whitstable is one of those rare leftie arty places commuting distance to London" so I was curious to know where else? That's all! Nowt more tgan that though maybe a dumb question. Please don't shoot me

[Bunbaker]

"Goldthorpe looked pretty leftie around the time of thatcher's funeral"

Along with most of the rest of Barnsley I think.

[UptheChimney]

Katerina my advice is that when you're in a hole, stop digging.

Unless I've completely lost my SOH and your OP is a wind-up, you show a really lamentable ignorance about your fellw citizens, and if you're like that, just stay in London. The rest of the UK really don't want people who would ask the OP as a serious question moving into their towns, quite frankly.

[crazyhead]

Having grown up and gone to school (a comprehensive, before anyone asks) near TW, I want to defend the OP for her question. Most of the children at my school were already incredibly Daily Mail and it took years to get to know people that weren't. There was a widespread hatred of culture among the kids. I have twice been to pubs in the countryside near TW and heard people in them whose black labradors have been named n**r.

Of course there are arseholes living in all places, but there can be such a thing as a prevailing culture that allows the sort of openly despicable attitudes of those dog owners.

[HilaryM]

I hear you OP. I'd never lived in a 'Daily Mail' area before I moved to where I am now (home counties) and its making me very unhappy. There's no culture, we have a UKIP county councillor and everyone thinks I'm a weirdo for my feminism, support of equal marriage, etc. it's incredibly lonely. I dream of moving back to the city, or Anywhere where I can feel like I'm surrounded by 'my tribe'. I never realised it would make such a difference.

[AllBoxedUp]

The OP did ask for suggestions of places that are in commuting distance to London This map shows there is a ring of blue round London.

[Ablababla]

There are leftie enclaves in London tho. The overall area might have elected Zac Goldsmith (he does have lovely hair) but Kingston upon Thames once had the highest Guardian readership in the country.

[CharlotteBronteSaurus]

TBH i do get what the OP is talking about

once you leave London proper, parts the 'burbs can be very Little Englander. I grew up in the Kent/SE London borders, where there is still lots of racism, and very negative attitudes towards any sort of diversity. In other words, not very comfortable places to be living if you stray at all from the perceived norm.

and yes, there are lots of brilliant artsy leftie diverse places in the North, that's partly why we moved up there. but that doesn't really help the OP if she needs to commute to London for work.

[Viviennemary]

I love the Queen's Road in Leicester. My DD stayed near there for a couple of years.

[Goodwordguide]

I just think you are over-generalising a lot. One of the reasons we moved out of London was that I was so bored of the dull middle class affluence, the obession with school places and houses and Waitrose etc, the snobbery and (covert admittedly) racism. Where we live now has more Ukip voters but also has more Green voters and so is more diverse in many other ways - people are definitely more hippyish, more involved locally and practically all the kids go to their local school.

I grew up in Newcastle - massively leftwing but utterly white, definitely not diverse in any sense.

[UptheChimney]

Goodwordguide I recognise completely your picture of the regions adnd London.

I think it probably is as much about the kind of work one does, the friends one has, and the kinds of activities one gets involved in.

My home town, in the north apparently has a high level of BNP membership, but I've never met an overt BNP member, and the city also has a high proportion of hippy, leftie, green etc people. It's a university town, which helps, although I suspect it's the lecturers not the students who make the town quite an enlightened place, in my experience.

I just think that the OP semis to be so ignorant and quite blinkered about this wonderful country.