I’ll say sorry now because I am about to have a bit of a rant. I have heard a few times these past few days that voting for the Liberal Democrats is pointless because they will never win anyway, or that one vote doesn’t make a difference and I am starting to grow a little tired of hearing it.

I disagree fundamentally with the idea that one vote doesn’t count. Of course it fucking counts. The fact that you have a vote at all is what counts not the notion that 1 in a million is irrelevant. You aren’t 1 in a million you are 1 of thousands of other voters. You can’t look at it thinking what difference does one vote make because the question is irrelevant, the more people that vote for a particular party and what they represent the more the other parties will look at that and start to take note. EVEN if you vote for the losing party you have still had your say in the democratic process. It isn’t just about winning it is about putting your mark down as wanting things to be done a certain way and the more people that do that the more whoever is in charge has to listen.

Imagine if you took that attitude with what football team you supported. You don’t go to a Southend (or insert local club here) game and think what difference does it make if I turn up or if I show my support do you? I’ve never heard a fan say “Manchester United have millions of fans more what relevance do I have as a Southend supporter? I might as well not bother.”

Imagine if they did, what would happen? How many clubs would go out of business? What knock on effect that would have to the top teams who would suffer through a lack of competition?

Now imagine no competition in politics, people only voting for who they thought could win or not at all, not who they wanted to win. Imagine one party becoming so strong that there was no reasonable competition. Imagine the abuse of power that would lead to. Imagine the fucked up situation where a government thought it was so powerful that it could just do what the fuck it lies. Because that’s not far off what Labour has had these past few years and look where that got us. Fighting an illegal war and facing a future of David fucking Cameron at the helm. If that isn’t motivation enough to vote I don’t know what is.