Now if we: invested a lot, long term, in capital infrastructure, education and healthcare, taxed the rich a bit more, regulated inefficient markets better and put aside money for crises such as this- just think where we'd be in a few decades
Absolutely. The issue in the UK is that it's been a case of 'keep stamp duty down, low income tax, no rise to NI, no raise in the upper tax bracket' and so on and so forth, people lap up the 'low tax' part of UK living, but they simultaneously demand free at the point of access health care, a healthy jobs market so they can afford to buy overpriced homes, cheap personal loans to buy and run multiple cars, and cheap fuel to put in those totally unnecessary cars, free state education for their children, an armed forces to protect them, the expectation of foreign holidays at a competitive exchange rate, and an ever increasing and improving standard of living.
So how does a government provide this 'cheap everything' utopia that the UK public seems to expect in perpetuity? Well not buy telling them that it's totally unrealistic and unsustainable, nope, well just borrow a few trillion more and pour that down the drain as well.
The fact is, the UK public have had the wool pulled over their eyes for decades by politicians who only care about electoral viability, and are totally unwilling to point out some difficult and unpalatable truths about the reality of the UK economy.