Quote: "British law protects criminals too much and also prevents citizens arming themselves, even with melee weapons."
We are weak on criminals, and you do feel a little restricted in your self defence in the UK. Ironically though, this attitude leads to a safer country. Our absence of guns and knives means muggers and burglars and other scum don't need to tool up so much, nor do they need to stab you in the face before asking for your wallet, since you are highly unlikely to pose much of a threat.
This is also why our police, for the most part, do not want to be armed. While they are less equipped to deal with guns and knives, most of the time it means the situations are less dangerous. Obviously there are times when they're at a disadvantage, but cops are very rarely shot in this country, because they're not armed, so they don't create stand-offs. When a criminal is going nuts with a sword or a gun, the armed police come in as a separate unit.
As for self defence
in the home, it is a misconception that people can't defend themselves with weapons. Because of a load of high profile cases where, for example, the home owner has laid in wait and then shot someone, and then been prosecuted, people think you can't defend your own home. The reality is, if you're in your house, someone breaks in, and you pick up a baseball bat, smack them round the head and kill them ... well, there will be an investigation, but you are highly unlikely to face criminal proceedings.
The situations changes when you continually batter someone who is unconscious until they're dead, or chase them down the street and stab them, or have an opportunity to call the cops but instead camp out waiting for the burglar and then shoot them. None of those scenarios are self defence. They're all murder, or man slaughter. It's cases like that that the papers get hold of with the headline "Man prosecuted for hitting burglar" and make people think we're defending criminals. We're not. We're punishing vigilantism.
By all means stab someone who is posing a threat to you in your own home, but when they're lying on the floor bleeding and incapacitated, call the police. Don't take law into your own hands and stab them another 50 times. If you do though, you can be sure you'll see the headline "Man brutally attacked in own home who gently prods attacker once with toothpick is sentenced to execution in a nazi death camp." because the real headline of "Man stabs burglar and then continues to brutally murder him as he lies incapacitated" doesn't appeal to the paper's sense of justice.
