[Stooky Bill]

Took waaay to long. Thats should be one of the fastest shots to get. Simply a touch of a button. Im sorry waiting for someone to run down the road from their Whitehall Office with a camera is crazy. The BBC interrupted Talking Movies and had live pictures seeming of the Cenotaph, which of course its near Downing Street to immediately take. Could have just been a traffic camera they took. It just seems that a shot of or near Downing Street should just be a given as this is the official residence of the PM.  And you cant use security as an excuse as the White House is constantly under surveillance by the worlds media.

They're completely different in terms of scale, they can have a camera on a building a block or so away pointing at the White House as its got open land on two sides. 

Downing Street is a very small street, Whitehall is wider. The buildings are all 5 or 6 stories high so what a permanent camera could get would be limited even on the once in a blue moon that anything did happen - people and buses etc get in the way 

Of course a shot of the White House is sometimes used as a beauty shot for the end of news, again there's not really the same demand for somewhere in Whitehall.

Incidently, I'll take your word for it that there are permanent camera(s) pointing at the White House. There's certainly usually at least one crew there in case a live report is needed.

The plug in points and camera positions in Downing Street are crewed a lot of the time, but of course for the event today if they're not there then getting to those positions isn't possible because of the incident itself