On paper the UK has the worst economic exposure in the OECD and produces very little indeed.
We are little more than a service economy for banking at this point, and UK banking has the lion's share of our total debt, dwarfing what is owed by the public sector. Luckily we are considered the stable place, so people continue to put their money here, but I suspect that is more of a confidence trick than anything else.
The reasons of Spanish underdevelopment during the past centuries are several and have been studied thoroughly and have nothing to do with "being lazy" as you seem to suggest.
I detest how every news that involves Spain is linked to the current crisis. Just 5 years ago Spain was a model of economic growth and progress and we lived at the same Time Zone.
And exactly what attitude to work have Spaniards?