The origin of Judge Dredd says a lot about the UK. Before 2000AD and Judge Dredd the publisher was doing conventional crime comics. Same format and frequency - cheap newsprint color weekly - but with mundane cops and robbers subject matter.
One week the cover showed a man in a suit being menaced by a juvenile delinquent during a riot. Lying on the ground next to him was a bobby police helmet. The colorist - allegedly - mistakenly colored the man's suit blue, same as the helmet, making it appear that the comic was about a teenage boy beating up a policeman. This was so scandalous it force the comic company to stop doing contemporary crime stories. But what to replace them with? It was 1977, the year of Star Wars, so 2000 AD seemed like just the trick. Instead of cops vs. robbers it was judges vs. robbers in the grim dark future, nothing controversial.
But the key political point is that the state is so entrenched in its absolute power that anything that might crack consensus on total obedience is immediately stamped out.