As we approach the end of summer, it seems appropriate to take stock. How was the weather? Not bad, though it was both too hot and too cold, too wet and too dry. How was the sport? Great, fantastic, era-defining, shame he's Scottish, how could you lose to a 10-man Hull? How were your holidays? Lovely, terrible, could have done with longer, just too trendy for me I'm afraid.

Er, you what? Your holiday was too trendy? Yes, too bloody trendy, I'm furious. And the art was crap. Really? Sorry to hear that. Where did you go? Brighton. Ah well, you may have asked for that one then.

As a way to pad out the final dog days of summer, an online poll to find the country's worst seaside resort would seem to be a winner. Everyone has an opinion and laughing at "shit towns" has been something of a sport these last few years. But the results of this latest questionnaire seem to have bucked the trend by naming Brighton and Hove as the worst resort in the country. Not for being dilapidated or short of attractions, but because – well – it's all a bit too edgy.

The Telegraph reports: "Brighton was criticised for its 'right-on' attitudes, awful parking and clubbers wearing garish outfits. The poll, by the travel website Real Holiday Reports, found that tourists thought it 'full of bohemians and bad art'. There were complaints about the council's decision to install gender-neutral public lavatories and an 'Mx' alternative to Mr and Mrs for transsexuals on official forms."

However spurious or non-representative these opinions might be they're certainly eye-catching. I'm not the world's foremost expert on Brighton – both my brothers studied at Sussex University but that was back in the days when Brighton and Hove Albion played at an athletics track and every Friday was given over to the celebration of Norman Cook. From what I understand, however, Brighton's basic principles are still the same: remaindered hippy culture is matched with nightclub hedonism, gay pride, south-eastern wealth and bien-pensant London refugees to create a vibrant, progressive, occasionally overblown new city. Personally I find it hard to imagine complaining about Brighton for any reason other than it having Britain's most uncomfortable beach with stones buried under more layers of dirt than your average Plantagenet king. It turns out though that they do. But why would you want to do that?

Maybe because Brighton is a symbol of something greater than itself. A symbol of progressivism, of liberal tolerance. And right now, we're in a Conservative moment. When my brothers were resident in Brighton a dozen years ago, the UK was awash in the optimism of early Blairism, people believed in progress, in things getting better, in finding a use for the Millennium Dome. Today, Britain is broke and broken, everyone's on the scam and excessive right on-ism is forcing ordinary Britons into retreat. The idea of Brighton is not one suited to these current times. Complaints about parking and taxpayer-funded art sound about right.

I wonder whether the people who dislike Brighton have always done so or only feel emboldened enough now. Have people's attitudes changed or, freed from the yoke of political correctness, are people finally able to say what they feel?

One of the criticisms often levied at liberals, progressives, PC Nazis, whatever you want to call them, is that they're so convinced of the virtue of their own beliefs that they patronise those who think differently. But those of a conservative persuasion are not immune from such behaviour. And if you were to wildly extrapolate from the results of one tinpot poll (something which has never been a problem for me) you might come to the conclusion that now is their moment.