It all very well to say that we shouldn't have been distracted by them, but then its difficult to not be by a bunch of leery wankers chanting "muslims off our streets"( though this did have its comic aspect as they were initially shouting it at a load of cidered-up punks, while i dont like to judge by appearances, I doubted were muslim).

The fact that the Police allowed them to do this for at least two hours, wandering from pub to pub...trying their best to start a fight was a bit of a mystery. ..Did they have a no arrest policy? I'm no lawyer but its clear they could of easily got nicked for 'breach of the peace', if not 'threatening behaviour' on a number of occasions. This sometimes happens when the police are told not to arrest as it makes more of a news story. Eventually things came to a head and there were fights around the fountains. around 4 EDL got arrested...and a couple of people got minor injuries. Then theire is the conspiracy theory that they were allowed to kick off to distract us lefties. Not convinced about that one myself.

I know that their has been a bit of a debate whether we should treat the edl as nazis...this was my first face to face confronation with them.... and they were pretty much your average bonehead hooligan...one had an SS (waffen) tattoo...they wanted a fight not a debate...if this was the whole "bristol division" then it seemed less then impressive...

As for the politicians...i didn't even see them arrive...i would say i was disappointed if i had any expectations of what was going to happen...the last I saw of the demo were some fathers 4 justice people dressed in their usual super-hero costumes. I went home after that.