According to the most recent figures,there were about 5,500 armed police officers in England and Wales. Half the number they were 15 years ago.
Police forces are struggling to recruit the 1,500 extra armed police pledged after the Paris attacks. Not many people want to do these jobs. Seems like anything related with Police and guns is a taboo subject.
@Kaptaan
When May was in the home ministry,budgets were slashed and nearly 20K police officers were cut. And now,because of budget cuts,Scotland Yard faces to loose 4K police officers. It will bring back the number of officers to pre-2003 levels. Such problems are faced by pretty all the police forces it seems.
The Tories did not pledge to up the number of police officers or budgets,in fact Amber Rudd did not rule out further cuts. Their main adversaries,Labour pledged to up the budgets and the numbers of cops by 10K.