I think that every country in the world has a particular set of values and culture, usually shaped by centuries of history. No two countries have exactly the same, but some will appear similar often due to shared history in some way.
In some countries the values and culture have been shaped by a cataclysmic event (revolutions in France, USA, Russia etc; German defeat) and others by particular episodes in their history (racial tension in South Africa; establishment of Israel etc).
Each country's individual values and culture are interconnected, and it is usually not possible to separate out an individual characteristic and apply it to a different country, without having to transpose other interconnected characteristics as well.
In the UK our values and culture have been shaped by history; we have had no social cataclysmic event in recent times, which has left us as, inter alia, a trading nation with an ingrained class system (modified from earlier years, but still 'them' and 'us') and an individual money making culture. Taking the German economic model to the UK, without bringing the German social and cultural characteristics [which we can't, unless by authoritarian means, because of different histories], just will not work.
This is why I say 'because we're not Germany'.
I expect there are Germans wanting to bring some aspect or another of UK values and/or culture to Germany, who will face exactly the same difficulties, as there will be an interconnected item to get it to work that they definitely do not want!
No country's values and culture are inherently all bad; they are just different. Major changes would only come about by an event destroying the current cultural order , which I would rather not live through. In the meantime we have to adapt what we've got where possible (with all the vested interests) and live with the rest.
A minor example, but nonetheless indicative: How many times have we heard the press clamouring for the Swiss or Japanese to take over the running of our railways, so the trains will run to time? Without the interconnected values and cultures of that country being applied to all interfaces with the railway, they will make very little difference at all.
I do think that your explanation relies too much on national exceptionalism.
The examples quoted by yourself illustrate my point. On the surface of it, the Japanese and Swiss railway systems have always looked much more organised than ours - resultant from some national characteristic perhaps ? When you look closer, it turns out to be the case that the Swiss and the japanese have relied on their railway networks more than us, and so have invested more to keep them running like clockwork. I once saw a documentary on the Japanese network on how they kept their busiest junction in Tokyo running without a hitch. It turned out that they had an engineer posted in the area to monitor the points more or less permanently. We, on the other hand have traditionally regarded the railway network as a bit of an added extra to personal motoring, hence we wouldn't want to pay to have someone looking at Borough Market Junction all the time. I'm not saying that the Japanese are right in this and we are wrong - just that it is a matter of policy, not culture.
I believe that most of our wrong decisions can be put down to bad ideology - not national character traits. The destruction of the manufacturing base is no different.