Devil's advocate here..
But the UK DOES spy on it's citizenry at least as much as the US, if not more (they have more camera's per capita for CCTV observation of crowds and traffic for example). They also don't have protections against persecution for speech, (aka Freedom of Speech), and Can get arrested for things we say without a second thought on social media.

I am not sure where he's getting butter knives from but, they do have major restrictions on guns as well as knives in the country. People have been arrested for carrying a kitchen knife from house to house cause it was seen on CCTV or a neighbor called the Police.

UK has a lot of what would seem like weird laws in place if you grew up in the US.