The British police system is a peculiar accident of history. London’s local Metropolitan Police Service is responsible for much national policing – including anti-terror operations. Mechanisms for public oversight of the police are from another age. The system needs an overhaul.

In the past 15 years, the police service has received significant new powers to pry, detain and curb the right to assemble. Some of these powers are useful, some are excessive. They all reflect a fear that the UK’s usually unarmed police force is outdated in the age of terror.