The Brits didn't start attacking traffic cameras in large numbers until several years after Britain became an Orwellian police state infested with huge numbers of streetside spy cameras and traffic cameras.
So it's not an issue of "manhood." Instead, after the London Telegraph reported that the first mere fistful of traffic cameras had been destroyed with impunity by people just lassoing the camera head with a rope tied to a car bumper, it unleashed a tidal wave of popular rage among typical Brits who knew that their grandpas didn't risk death to give them life in what amounted to a giant prison camp that Himmler couldn't have dreamed up.