Which is, of course, very far from the vast majority of the people. The vast majority of the UK , while not RP, certainly sits closer to the RP side than the Oop Norf, gooin’ doon t’pit side.
I’m the exact opposite (usually 1, but occasionally 2). I am willing to participate in a study with you to see if both phenomena are the result of the same circumstance.
And I originate 80 miles due west of you, and I’m option 3 as well, and I was likewise unable to figure out what options 1 and 2 were about. Although…
… presented with those two pronunciations I can hear the difference. IMHO, that’s not how I would hear Pushy pronounced day-to-day (and for the record, I live south of London now, and have done most of my life). That pronunciation of Pushy isn’t Brief Encounter English; but it’s (let’s say) 5% of the way there.
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To me, an American, the slushy pronunciation is what I think of as correct, but I pronounce it like bushy because I got some weird speech habits from my mother that I’ve never eradicated.
I don’t really know what you mean by “closer to RP” than your made-up and badly mangled northern accent.
Most people in the UK speak with accents that are very different to RP and as distinct from each other as they are from RP
There is a certain small section of the home counties that are close to RP, other than that It just isn’t very common.
Most of London isn’t close to RP, Nor Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales, There’s nearly 20 million without breaking sweat. Not most of the other counties either.
Agreed, I’m in the south east now and it isn’t how I’d typically hear it either though a small proportion of people would pronounce similar vowels in that manner.
I took it as completely good-natured joking around, nothing more. The well-liked poster above who all but said “my pronunciation is the only correct one” was obviously kidding. Don’t we all secretly feel that way inside, though? 
Possibly, but parochial language peeving so widespread, it’s difficult to know. And I seem to recall that the commenter in question some history along these lines in language threads.
No, we really don’t. You are projecting.
You clearly don’t hang around in enough pronunciation/grammar/usage threads here on the Dope. 
OK then, I will own that. It just is my little inner 10-year-old chauvinist; don’t take him seriously. I have enjoyed learning from the technical discussion in this thread, though! I’ll remember the strut/foot distinction.
Well, I suppose I should clarify that. Of course we all have a strong intuitive sense of what feels right to us in language usage, based on the dialect of our own time and place. But I think most people understand that other people from other times and places speak different dialects (or just have different accents) which feel equally right and natural to them. And that applying terms like “right” and “wrong” to these differences is a category error.
I’m always surprised (not just with language) how bad some people seem to be at distinguishing arbitrary features based on local custom and culture from features that are based on more fundamental non-arbitrary principles.
Right. I took this to be self-evident, to the point that to claim otherwise is laughable. But as @pulykamell said, I probably don’t hang around these usage and pronunciation threads enough.
You seem to hang around sensible people. This is not just a Dope phenomenon, at all. I find this attitude expressed a lot in mainstream message boards and Facebook groups and stuff like that, where people love to “correct” points of pronunciation and grammar that vary by dialect, and if you don’t say it the way they perceive as “correct”, you must be uneducated. (I speak in mostly prestige dialect English when I want to, but to hear people cast aspersions and assumptions of intelligence on another’s choice of words or pronunciation is something I find annoying as hell.)
Did I miss something or do people really think that tushie rhymes with pushy rather than slushie or mushy?
In my dialect tushie rhymes with pushy and slushie rhymes with mushy.
“Tushie” absolutely rhymes with “pushy” in my dialect (Great Lakes). Both said with an /ʊ/ as in “book” sound. “Tushie” with an /ʌ/ as in “butt” or “slush” in dialects that discern the two just sounds really … weird. I have never heard “tushie” to rhyme with “slushie” with the /ʌ/ sound.
Like here (press the speaker button):
Same.
I think about how I say the verb form:
I mush things together, those things might be mushy (both sound like push).
At some point in my life, I learned about “mushy peas”, which is a compound noun in my mind, and the “mush” part sounds like the mush in mushroom.
Interesting. I’m trying to think of an example of my hearing that pronunciation and I’m pulling a blank. Just another oddity of English.
All of the examples in this video rhyme tush with push:
However, I note that they get the IPA wrong, as it should be /tʊʃ/.
It is very common in the UK for all those to rhyme.