It seems the Northern charm is not enough these days as Manchester has recently been voted the least polite city in the country. Beating London for the top spot of rudest city in the UK (which came second in the list), it hasn’t left us best pleased. Perhaps an unpleasant review will show our upset…
And that just happens to be one of the reasons why Manchester came in first place. A new study by the language learning platform Preply examined data from Tripadvisor, and also the online database Numbeo, to find out which cities in the UK seem to prioritise politeness less than others. Cities across the UK were analysed and rated out of 30, with Manchester sadly scoring the lowest with a score of just 3.6.
Preply analysed the number of TripAdvisor reviews for various attractions, hotels, and landmarks that contained keywords such as ‘polite’, ‘friendly’, ‘welcoming’, ‘fantastic’, ‘would come again’, and ‘outstanding’ to gauge the rudest and most polite city in the UK. The language learning platform also utilised Numbeo to gather data such as each city’s safety index and cleanliness score.
Despite being renowned for its diversity and quirkiness, the city scored a polite score of 1.5/10 for only 15% of TripAdvisor reviews praised its hotels, landmarks and attractions for their politeness. In terms of safety Manchester scored 0.6/10 making it, unfortunately, last place.
However, the so-called rude and bustling city of London was named the second-least polite city in the UK, receiving a score of 6.6/30 overall. Even though the city is well known for being fast-paced and cutthroat, it is still surprising to see a score of 0/10 when it comes to politeness, as well as a score of 1/10 for safety.
Coming in third place was fellow Northern city, Sunderland, walking away with a score of 8.6/30 in total. Interestingly, the spot scored a respectable 7/10 when it came to politeness alone, but the overall score was dragged down by a score of 0.6/10 for safety.
So, where exactly in the UK is the most polite? Well, according to Preply, the city of Cambridge is considered the most polite with a polite score of 6/10 and overall score of 26/30 due to also ranking as the safest and cleanest city in the UK.
The second most polite city went to Newcastle followed by Sheffield in third place. Plus, the city with the highest number of polite reviews was Southampton, with 44% of reviews analysed featuring keywords.