The fact is that in spite of all the prattle about "democracy" and "freedom", the UK has been a police state for many years. The police make up laws they want, ignore those they don't , do whatever they want to do, and have almost no real restraint. Further, they have played the image of the "friendly bobby" to the hilt so that neither most Britons nor most tourists realize that modern English police are a lot closer to the Gestapo than to any idea of "bobbies on bicycles." Their armed police are a joke, a bunch of untrained, trigger happy goons, running around pointing guns at people for the fun of it and likely as not shooting innocent people when they do open fire. Their regular cops are so racist and sadistic they make the "bathroom plunger" boys in NYC look like the ACLU.
Their electronic surveillance is pervasive. A London police official bragged that "there is nowhere anyone can go in the UK that is out of range of a CCTV camera." While I doubt that, it is certainly the goal, and, note, Mayor Bloomberg wants funding for thousands more cameras in NYC and tens of thousands of police to monitor them 24/7.
And when the cops somehow do blunder into actually solving a crime, the crooks get off with light sentences and go right back to work. If the cops find stolen property, the chances of the rightful owner getting it back are nil. If it has any value, the cops steal it; if it doesn't, they trash it. Many times, police officers have been caught committing crimes, burglary being a favorite. No arrests, no trials, just back to work keeping the public safe.
The only place British police have a good reputation is in mystery stories. I think they pay half the old women in the UK to write novels showing how the noble cops fight crime.
Jim