Mr D, while I agree that were myths about the stiff-upper-lipped-edness of the British in 1940, if the Government wasn’t prepared to arm the public, who were the Home Guard.
Although I believe you are a tad older than my goodself, Square and may have just been old enough to remember the tail end of the war years, from the documentaries I have watched regarding the Home Guard, they were square bashing and training with pitchforks, hardly a deterrent to the German storm troopers they were likely to encounter in the event of an invasion.
Further, according to the documentaries, the Home Guard were never designed to be a realistic line of defence, but merely a moral booster. I think you will find that even at the height of an invasion threat, the British police would still have been arresting private citizens for offences regarding the illegal possession of firearms. The ruling elite were very concerned after the Russian revolution and the fate of the Romanoffs, particularly as at the time after WW1, the country was awash with weapons and young men with military training. That coincided with the beginning of draconian legislation restricting the private ownership of firearms which was further ratcheted up piecemeal fashion until the total ban under the 1998 Firearms act.
The very first act that any dictatorship engages in when invading a country is to confiscate its citizen's weapons, most notably, Adolf Hitler, after all, its far easier to subjugate a dumbed down and unarmed nation than an educated and armed one. Do you think its a coincidence that Britain's educational standards have slipped since the post war golden era of education which led to public awareness and the protests of the 1960's and 70's. Now all the proletariat care about are whose going to win Big Brother, the availability of cheap booze, celebrity culture etc. etc and lest we forget, the instigation of 'Get rid of Grayson' campaigns. 
Not sure where you're getting that from old chap. There were thousands of veteran soldiers from WW1 in the HG and I'd say they were very much the last line of defence before the Special forces got active in the event of an invasion. They are still finding the old " special commando" bunkers full of weapons and expolsive, and from my time in the Army, it was known that there were hundreds un-recovered after the war, deliberately it was thought, although the majority of the old boys are dead now so they will stay un-recovered.
In terms of arming the population, the vast majority are so messed up, who would want them wandering around with a loaded weapon, however, we've got about 2 million people still alive with Military service, with around 500,000 still on a reserve list. Myself included.
