Got news for you - the Brits are letting more and more cops carry guns and they’ve gotten to the point where they have multiple squads of men with submachine guns roving around in vans ‘just in case’ every hour of the day.
Many British cops that are issued sidearms are required to keep them concealed to further the ‘unarmed’ myth.
Remember this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes