Definitely agree with you that the British press have played a pivotal role in the politicisation of the issue over here, they have taken it either as a personal attack ("as if we're using an unsafe vaccine, wtf are they implying") or an excuse ("they can't get their vaccination campaign right so they've got to blame someone else").
That ITV segment referenced above was regurgitated almost exactly by my parents: there's fewer blood clots than would be expected in the population, AZ is no worse than Pfizer so why are they only talking about one and notthe other, not vaccinating people for a few days will kill thousands, the EU's decision is either political or misinformed. The details about it particularly affecting demographics that have a much lower incidence of blood clots, the links to particular batches, the oddity of the proximity of these cases...they seem to have been glossed over to make it a very simple story that could only be interpreted one way: the EU's decision makes no sense, and the UK's sense of priorities continues to be vindicated.
It's a little disingenuous to ask "why is the UK like this?", though. Throughout the pandemic the UK was held up as one of the worst examples of pandemic responses, with regular references to cases and deaths statistics. They were losing the international competition. There's no shortage of references to that in the covid thread, and it started from about this time last year. It is natural to get defensive to such a constant onslaught, especially in a time of heightened international tensions and on a subject of such significance. And people were revving up to do the same thing at the start of the vaccine campaigns: they didn't approve it properly, then they didn't plan the procurement properly, classic UK, could only happen there
Taken as a direct response to that, the UK attitude shouldn't seem that unusual. The UK approved it first and diverged from its two main peers on how it did so, which raised some questions about risk assessment: that issue is raising its head once again, and the implication in both cases was that the EU are taking a safer approach. That isn't a small claim to make given the fact safety is a critical element of a vaccine: if they can't evaluate that properly then they're not only incompetent but dangerous. The idea that the UK threw all their eggs in one basket is an undercurrent here too, given the vaccine in question.
In the face of those questions, explicit and implicit, it is not unreasonable to make the point that as a result of those two key decisions - "putting all its eggs in one basket" and "not being as careful in vaccine approval" - the UK has managed to roll out an incredibly successful campaign, by any measure, with obvious and dramatic effects on the pandemic. That performance is worth celebrating, and stories that attempt to undermine the significance of that need to be strongly contested based on the evidence. For that point to be made in terms of statistics is just a continuation of the pattern, a direct response to the criticisms in months passed.
