What is the most left-wing European city?

[CumbrianLefty]

It's been done for the US, so why not Europe? Use whatever definition of left wing (electoral success of left wing parties, social movements, radical urban policy...) and of city that you want. Although potentially not random-andalusian-village-with-50-people-that-voted-95%-Podemos or whatever.

What was the consensus there?

[CumbrianLefty]

There's possibly a case for arguing that Glasgow is even more left-wing than Liverpool - in a lot of places the SNP can't be treated as a straightforward left-of-centre vote, but it's hard to argue for anything else in Glasgow.

And the basic pitch of the Nats there is "we are the true heirs of the Red Clydesiders, not those quasi Tories in Scottish Labour" which its safe to say isn't their pitch in Moray or Stirling.

[CumbrianLefty]

There's possibly a case for arguing that Glasgow is even more left-wing than Liverpool - in a lot of places the SNP can't be treated as a straightforward left-of-centre vote, but it's hard to argue for anything else in Glasgow.

I mean, the presence alone of Rangers Football Club is a pretty good counter argument to Glasgow being more leftwing than Liverpool...

The hardcore come from around Glasgow and the coast. Everton had quite a nasty following back in the days so...

I know Rangers have big implantation in Ayshire but they also have a big local following in traditional Protestant districts of Glasgow, in the south  (trace a line from govan hill to the bottom of the city limits). That coincidentally have high Tory numbers...and also go into some rangers supporting pubs in Glasgow with some nice mural-like red hands with UVF stuff and RAF symbols...you'd never see anything like that in Liverpool

Not saying they are plurality in the city. But in general Glasgow has a right wing element you wouldn't see in a city like Liverpool. I have never heard of these right wing evertonians though and am intrigued.

Glasgow doesn't have big Tory strongholds anywhere these days, at council or constituency level.

As for Everton - yes they did have a very nasty fringe in the 80s, it was infamously their "fans" who chucked a banana at John Barnes in what became an (in)famous incident. The ward in Liverpool of that name also returned councillors for a local Protestant Party back in the day.

[CumbrianLefty]

So what would your definition of "left wing" be if not primarily based on voting behaviour?

[CumbrianLefty]

And the Liverpool LibDems certainly weren't *all* right wing when they ran the council.

[CumbrianLefty]

A lot of the towns with big student and ‘alternative’ populations, like Bristol, are pretty left wing these days and return Labour MP’s by big margins but that’s, generally speaking, a much more recent state of affairs than it is for Liverpool (whilst Liverpool was shifting to Labour in the 1980’s, Bristol went the other way and kicked Tony Benn out of the Commons in 1983)

Bristol's best election for the Tories wasn't actually 1983 but 1987 - increased majorities in E and NW and came close to winning S. The transformation since then has been pretty astonishing.

(only West went less Tory against the trend, something of a canary in the coalmine in retrospect)

[CumbrianLefty]

Celtic and Rangers etc exploded in relative popularity, as someone who grew up in a place where there were still legitimate Hamilton and Motherwell fans in the early/mid 90's simply because it was consumable. You could decorate your room with it. For the same reason a whole swathe of people became Man U fans.

Though that phenomenon arguably started with Liverpool in the 1980s.

[CumbrianLefty]

Though the Orange parades in Liverpool may have been the last ones extant in England.

[CumbrianLefty]

Perhaps, but these football superfans (I guess you can't call them all hooligans or ultras) are a pretty small percentage of the population.

Yes, and even many other committed fans find them something of an embarrassment.

[CumbrianLefty]

Perhaps, but these football superfans (I guess you can't call them all hooligans or ultras) are a pretty small percentage of the population.

Yes, and even many other committed fans find them something of an embarrassment.

I think the way English football has become the epitomy of modern, commercialised, tourist-orientated football more embarrassing than a couple of Crystal Palace supporters setting up an atmosphere group. You only have to look at how every English side is outsung in their own backyard by virtually every other club in Europe, made to look literally like they are afraid of standing up in their own home (granted my experience is mainly with the London clubs - I imagine clubs like Leeds would be different).

Let's also maybe learn the difference between ultra, hooligan and supporters club before passing judgement too. People have been going to strange venues to sing hymns for generations. There's no need to look down on this particular brand because they upset your cinema experience.

It is understandable why clubs in England are so keen to enforce no standing rules, as the memories of Hillsborough are still painful to many.

Yes, the fan experience is more commercialised and sanitised than on the continent, but quite frankly it is a hell of a lot better than in the 80s, when many families and fans would have been afraid to go to stadiums because of hooligans.

Hooliganism was a huge embarrassment to English football and England more broadly, creating negative perceptions in the rest of Europe, and its decline is a recent success story of English football.

Which is why I made the hooligan/ultra/supporters club distinction. In the same way you can't generalise about an entire fanbases politics based on the supporters group, you can't also merge hooligans and ultras into one.

No they aren't the same, but its not untrue to say that there can be *some* overlap.

[CumbrianLefty]

Derry is a stronghold of the SDLP, so no.

My knowledge of NI politics is shocking.

What's the reason for Derry being a SDLP stronghold?

I think (people can correct me if I'm wrong) you've got a firmer boundary (the river Foyle) to act as the sectarian banner, rather than the multiple boundaries that divide Belfast and cause the Prods to be a much more visivle threat; you've got a more well-established Catholic middle-class than elswhere and finally you have the huge figure of John Hume, who made the party resemble a real party (which it doesn't elsewhere) that actually bothered organizing in Derry's huge estates.

Yes the last point is significant and often understated, in large parts of NI the SDLP were basically (and sometimes almost literally) the continuation of the old Nationalist Party - whose infrastructure generally varied between rudimentary and non-existent. Which helps explain the latter's rapid eclipse come Civil Rights agitation (and final disappearance in the 1970s)

[CumbrianLefty]

Maybe partly because SF was then suppressed (even) more there than elsewhere?