Once again the farcical exercise of elections has rolled past us, and once again the various political parties have put great effort into persuading us to validate their overflowing bank accounts in return for their continued interference in our lives. The parties attempt this, as always, by highlighting the crimes and errors of their rivals while being guilty of the same incompetence and corruption themselves. Different elections, same old shite.

Perhaps what made this time different was the worrying situation that some people were seemingly so sick of the cash-grabbing antics of the larger parties (as if any of the smaller parties would be any different!), that they threw their lot in with the likes of UKIP and the BNP in what has laughably been dubbed as a 'protest' vote.

The end result of this has been BNP Führer Nick Griffin and fellow former National Front 'elite' Andrew Brons representing parts of England in Europe. Something which the bullshit merchants of the BNP are now making a great song and dance about, despite the fact that the pot-bellied pair actually received less votes than when the election circus was last in town. The BNP knew that getting just one person elected would give them a level of exposure that money can't buy, such is the mainstream media's desire to feed them the oxygen of publicity they so badly crave.

However, for our very own local BNP scumbags things did not go according to plan (some things never change). The desperate begging, or in some cases the abject indifference, of the eight BNP candidates that were put forward resulted in very little. The most 'impressive' outcome being Michael Carey, who stood in the St George East ward and will no doubt rave about receiving 17% of the vote, although in reality this equates to total count of just 575 and was even lower than the last time. Still it's better than his chum Christine Ogden, who stood in Horfield, and came dead last with 3% or a 'staggering' 135 votes.

Obviously any support for fascist lunatics, no matter how minor, is cause for concern and opposition. Perhaps for the time being we can take some comfort in the fact that Bristolians continually refuse to swallow BNP lies, although it’s a fair bet that this refusal was aided by the very public revelation, a few days before the election, that local BNP head honcho (at least in his own imagination) and public relations nightmare Clive Courtney may well have a taste for domestic violence.

The resounding lesson of this episode, and what we need to convey to those within our communities who felt desperate enough to foolishly support this sham of a political organisation, is that there is no such thing as a so-called protest vote. Put simply, a vote for a fascist organisation is a vote for fascism.