Whilst walking from the London.pm meeting to Victoria Station last night I passed two policemen who were holding very large rifles. One was outside the Houses of Parliament and the other was on a street corner newar New Scotland Yard.
Now I realise that this might not be surprising for people in less civilised countries, but in the UK the police don’t generally carry guns. I suspect that the government would say that it is justified by the current security situation[1]. I strongly suspect that this will be one of those temporary changes that are brought about by extraordinary circumstance but then never go away. I still remember when all the rubbish bins were removed from railway and tube stations in the early 1980s because the IRA had planted bomb in one. This was supposed to be temporary, but twenty years on and with the IRA mainland bombing campaign a distant memory there’s no sign of them coming back.
I don’t really mind things changing. I just wish the government could be honest about it.
[1] I walked past one of the Department of Trade and Industry buildings and noticed that it had a sign declaring that the current alert level was “Black Special”.
It is still culture-shock for me to see a policeman here in the US with a gun holstered on his side. I’m just not used to seeing it.The irony of course being that since I carry a firearm almost all the time during my daily life, why would I find a Policeman carrying so strange?
The real reason that the bins have gone is that BR and LUL didn’t want to pay people to empty them.
s/UK/GB/In NI almost all policemen have guns.