Police

There is no national police force in the UK. Instead there are local forces for each region which cooperate to run the Serious and Organised Crime unit and also the anti-terrorism unit which is headed up by the Metropolitan Police which covers the greater London area.
Police officers are not routinely armed although those guarding Royals and senior politicians and police at airports carry guns. The average policeman you meet in the street will be unarmed.
Until now the democratic control over the police has been through Local Authority nominees. The Local Authority members are elected and as each police area covers several local authority areas (our local North Wales Police covers 6 local authority areas) each authority nominates a member to a committee which supervises policing in the area.
The present government decided to replace this system with directly elected Police Commissioners, an american idea, so yesterday England and Wales voted for 41 new police commissioners.
The elections have been contraversial. The government wanted to have elections on the cheap. For Parlimentary elections candidates have to pay a deposit of £500 which is forfeit if they get less than 10% of the vote and candidates can send one leaflet outlining their policy free to every address in the constituency. For police commissioners the deposit is £5000 and there are no free leaflets just a website. The criticsm is that it makes it very hard for anyone other than someone supported by one of the main political parties to stand. As police commissioners are well paid this leads to accusations of "jobs for the boys" and bringing politics into policing.
The elections yesterday had the lowest turnout of any national election; the average turn out appears to be about 15%. There are also a high proportion of "spoiled" voting slips. It would seem the public are not as keen on commissioners as politicians.