Yes, the Politics and Philosophy course at Sheffield is extremely highly regarded.
I applied to do SPS at Cambridge, and got rejected. Hmm.
As you asked... I applied to (all Politics based) :
Sheffield - Politics
Manchester - Politics and International Relations
LSE - Government (ample opportunity for outside options in other social sciences)
Nottingham - Politics
and Durham - Politics
Personally, I found Durham and Nottingham dreadful, and the other three all very good.