Does voting support a broken political system?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGxFJ5nL9gg

While dysfunction in the Republican Party is getting a fair amount of attention in the U.S., the British are engaging in a debate on the left between Sociatlists and Labour supporters.

"I have never voted. Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites. Billy Connolly said: 'Don’t vote, it encourages them,' and, 'The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one,'" comedian Russell Brand writes in the New Statesman.

Actor Robert Webb says Brand's take on voting has led him to rejoin the Labour party, reports The Guardian.

"That just gives politicians the green light to neglect the concerns of young people because they've been relieved of the responsibility of courting their vote.

"Why do pensioners (many of whom are not poor old grannies huddled round a kerosene lamp for warmth but bloated ex-hippie baby boomers who did very well out of the Thatcher/Lawson years) get so much attention from politicians? Because they vote."

Webb personally accused Brand of political "timidity" for failing to vote, arguing that this was a key way to object to many of the policies that he objects to, such as George Osborne's challenge to the European Union's proposed cap on bankers' bonuses.

Today's Question: Does voting support a broken political system?

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