This feels super unfair to the gov.uk experience design which for me stands out head and shoulders above any other web workflow delivered by the public sector I've ever come across.

Pages are snappy, terse, consistent, clear and unsurprising. I agree this specific example feels a bit dark-patterny and occasionally stuff like self-assesment can have more steps than necessary, but overall it's really high quality.

In comparison the process for getting a DUNS number felt like going through some kind of a psychological experiment.

Finally, this:

> a party in power famous for paternalism

is just enclowning yourself with a partisan and non-sequitous point.