"and gather at our War Memorials.."

I mentioned the huge debt we experienced post WWII, which the post war government responded to by building much of the social infrastructure we now value greatly, including the NHS for example.

The Great Depression which preceded WII, caused people to starve to death (as indeed they do under Capitalist systems) this was one of the reasons people got a bit bugged by it. So after the war the UK thought they;d do things a bit differently. That's all over now though, because a minority coalition of disparate parties has "decided" on the behalf of the electorate that they'll do as they please. Nothing new there then.