Severe Weather - not really

For some reason the British cannot get it into their heads that the cold spell that we have been experiencing recently is not severe weather. In my past career I have spent a lot of time visiting countries that are a lot colder; where even minus 20 degrees Celsius is not regarded as severe and everything keeps running. In the south east of England and the rest of southern Britain day time temperatures rarely stay below freezing, but as soon as there is even a minor cold spell travel chaos results. Last year I was working in Hamburg during the winter and it was far colder than in the south of the UK and there was deeper snow. The Airport and roads were kept open and the trains still ran on time. What was particularly impressive was the way they kept the overground trains running when they they were using exactly the same electric third rail system as south eastern trains UK. If the German railway engineers can keep their system running then why can't the British?
This year during the cold spell we have been treated to television pictures of our European neighbours struggling to keep their public services running as if their struggles and failures are an excuse for our own. The trouble is the services, in Europe, only start to fall apart when there is exceptionally deep snow and temperatures fall below minus 20 degrees C in the day time; otherwise they can keep them going. The television also reports deaths on the street of the Ukraine but this only happens when temperatures really plummet. If Britain were to experience temperatures of minus 38 degrees C, there would be a complete catastrophe with hundreds of thousands dying as every home froze up. The rescue services would be unable to respond because their vehicles could not start and all the roads would be blocked.
During this "severe cold spell" the Met Office has given us at least a week's warning of cold but dry weather but then followed by at most ten centimetres of snow. During that period we have had ample time to put salt on all of the roads and the pavements. This salt would not have been washed away and we would have been ready for the cold snap. Equally the railways could have been better prepared. This did not happen. What happened during this time? There was nothing happening. The worst plan of all was for Heathrow airport to admit complete defeat by cancelling a third of their flights before a single snow flake fell. All the snow fell during the night when flights are banned anyway. The weather forecasts were correct, why could Heathrow airport not keep the snow ploughs running during the night? We all know the answer. There is defeatist management. There is a desperate air of decadence and a lack of management vitality. The attitude is to issue an upbeat press release rather than do something.
No doubt the government could instruct the private and public services to improve their act but why should they have to? We are not a state that should be run by diktat so private and public service suppliers should live up to their responsibilities which their counterparts, in often poorer, European states seem to manage when the thermometer strikes just zero.