There were no "people who were actually responsible". The economic cycle is a part of capitalism, always has been. The recession was especially large because there hadn't been a large recession for a long time (since the early 1980s, because the early 1990s recession was comparatively small). The causes were heavily international - Britain was more affected because of our exposure to the global financial system, natural for all nations with large financial and professional services sectors.

The crisis was handled relatively well by the British authorities. The bank of England and the Labour and subsequent Conservative-LD coalition governments acted decisively, contained the damage, initiated a broadly successful QE program, heavily limited the unemployment fallout - peak unemployment being below the US, France and most other badly affected countries throughout the Great Recession, despite the UK being more exposed - and has engaged successfully with the global process to tighten up banking regulation since the crash.

All in all, the 2008 recession was inevitable - but handled quite competently, and especially given the potential (with our exposure to finance) for an emerging-markets-level economic disaster, turned out decently all things considered. There's nothing to be ashamed of and, I'm afraid, no evil bankers behind the curtain to blame for all your problems.