Is Britain turning into the perfect surveillance society, where photographers not working for the police or other authorities get routinely harassed by the police when taking photos outside? Of course, it’s hard to tell from the distance, but the number of reports like this one has been rapidly increasing lately (note how the cop merely dismisses the sheet the photographer printed out about photography rights!). Also see this clip.

Just as an afterthought: Comments about how Americans supposedly are obsessed with freedom and liberty while in reality being just hypocritical - see this example - used so frequently outside of the US (but also inside) appear a bit worrisome, since they’re often used to make it seem as if only the US - “fortress America” - has these kinds of problems.
(this is an edited version of this afterthought, since the first version erroneously presented the author of this article as British [thanks for correcting me, Jay!], whereas he’s American)