"Is anyone else slightly embarrassed that the UK, as one of the world's leading industrialised nations, should be celebrating getting the first UK sponsored astronaut 44 years after the first man in space?"
Please don't feel embarrassed. The USA should be instead for not inviting our good friends the UK sooner. And if you figured the average cost the US paid sending each astronaut to space, you might be happy the UK did not follow suit. And I'm actually an advocate of US manned space travel.