Democracy

It's worth noting that if the BBC's own online consultation about the Over 75 licences had been a) the decider and b) based on first past the post, then the BBC would have had to maintain the benefit.

84,761 replied to the consultation, and were given options in odd wording: "copying" the benefit - meaning keeping Over 75 licences free; "restoring" - meaning no deals for anyone, and "reforming", meaning reducing the numbers of Over 75s entitled to the benefit by various means.

This is how it turned out...

When ranking the three overall options:
• Copying was the option most commonly ranked first (48%), followed by
Reforming (37%) and then Restoring (15%);
• Reforming was the option most frequently ranked second (55%),
followed by Restoring (25%) and then Copying (20%); and
• Restoring was the option most frequently ranked third (47%), followed
by Copying (30%) and then Reforming (23%).

When combining first and second preferences given by respondents:
• Reforming was the option with the greatest total of first and second
preferences (44%);
• Copying had the second highest combination of first and second
place preferences (37%), with Restoring third by a large margin (19%).