The fundamental problem with the UK was a lack of insulation until
very recently, and often high air changes per hour.

Gas central heating was the only way of getting sufficient kW into the
house at low unit cost, consider gas at 2.4p inc VAT vs Economy 7 at
5p & peak at 10p, it is as they say a "no-brainer". Economy 7 was an
atrocious kludge - totally inadequate kW, huge thermal losses from the
usual obsession of double glazing but no loft insulation, no wall
insulation, and high air changes per hour from coal era vents & open
flues. It translated into freezing by 7pm (or 2pm as often as not!).
Economy 7 was a lead balloon sold as a parachute, it had no chance of
warming the thermal mass of uninsulated building fabric.

Now insulate properly.

A 2009 build with a cheap build can have peak-rate panel heaters and
get away with it (working couple away most of the day, heat set to
background), a better build will have say economy-7 & peak-rate
Duoheats (better for stay-at-home retirees). Insulation really does
turn the tables; gas becomes expensive re install, maintenance, costly
system flushes & boiler replacement with unknown boiler life, idiot
installers, single point of failure.

A 1920 build on exposed coastal hill, mixed cavity & solid wall, with
celotex 25+25mm insulation throughout, 50+50mm in living area, 300mm
celotex in loft, 75mm underfloor. Before the insulation GCH did not
perform well, and finally froze in 2009 winter. Fully insulated
Economy 7 was installed and works superbly - commercial fan storage
heaters (not the domestic fan stuck on the bottom type) and standard
automatic type. Peak rate heaters (Calortec bought in France for £30
in 2008 summer) have not been used this winter.

A storage heater is a high thermal mass & continuous temperature body,
which is actually ideal if you insulate on the inside of a house
because it puts back the thermal mass lost - it provides a constant
temperature thermal mass.

Unfortunately, all is not roses with high insulation & electric
heating.
I still say a living area needs a radiant gas fire as a focal point
and direct radiative heating (and most preferably balanced flue).
I still say UK storage heaters are the cheap crap, USA & Germany get
proper commercial fan storage heaters branded AEG, Miele, etc. They
leak next to nothing, they only pump heat out by a fan which is
controlled by a wall mounted thermostat. Thus they are never too hot
or too cold, never run out when you get home, hold 40% of their heat
by midnight the next day so you never overcharge, no throwing windows
open because it is too hot. The downside is they are 2-2.5x as
expensive (3.4kWhr x7 is £800, 6.7-8.0kWhr x7 is £1300 - but they are
huge capacities). The upside is they avoid any single point of
failure, there is no maintenance cost re monthly D/D or boiler
replacement to save for, they last 25yrs etc, they are made in
Germany.

With very high levels of insulation GCH is an expensive white
elephant, electric heating can give better control. It is not however
easy to achieve such levels of insulation in the UK because it lagged
much of the world for decades, ridiculously. It could have required
25mm minimum polystyrene on all walls since 1970, instead it threw gas
at the solution - both for electricity generation (rather than nukes)
and for domestic heating.