In terms of Britain's conservatism I'm going to leave that as a debate for another time, lest this thread explode into "all the politics ever: debate time!" (I sort of agree, I think there's certainly an affinity for the notion of traditional ideas and values, but I don't think that necessarily favours right-wing parties and furthermore I think there's also a very deep-rooted liberal tradition in Britain which tends to favour moderate leftism).
I think certainly the Eurozone has taken some big knocks in public confidence. UKIP are also gaining as the new protest vote party, as the Liberals are no longer able to attract those sorts of votes. I think Labour -> UKIP tends to be anti-EU and anti-Immigration, Con -> UKIP is a mix of that and a lack of Conservatives supporting their traditional voting blocs, and Liberals -> UKIP is mostly a rather weird protest vote shift. Again, debate for another time I think.
I've met or communicated with various MPs in the past; there is a definite gap between "old" conservatives in rural areas and "new" ones. The new ones, usually parachuted in via public schools and the city, are generally much worse on local issues. Also, look at the Conservative front bench; the mix is no longer rural gentry families and public schoolboys, it's public schoolboys and financiers. There are very, very few old-time rural conservatives high up in the party any more, and people round here know that. And I'd say that's a post-Thatcher phenomenon.
As for the economics, basically nobody in the Labour party today would be likely to say that they fundamentally didn't think the current corporation-style system was working on any front. They engage in efforts to boost low-end wages and keep unemployment benefits etc, but that's really the Thatcherite economic model but putting in a safety net at the bottom. The sorts of policies people like myself would like to see, or even just the sort of discussions, particularly in terms of whether we can actually organise the whole system differently, just aren't there (I won't go into too many details here, but key issues are oligopolies, business constitution laws, etc). That said, we still vote Labour (or Liberal or Green depending on constituency) because it's the least worst option. I don't think many people really want to turn the clock back to the seventies, but since Thatcher the left has basically resigned itself to damage limitation rather than producing a seriously structurally different vision of the country.