Thanks to Wayne and Randy and all for your very experienced comments and advice. I am still pondering on what to do next with this, I am not much good with electrical problems, as almost all of my experience is with gas or spirit burners (mostly gas, and I have four in three different models and sizes).
I wish there was some way to apply a gas burner to this one, but obviously that is not a viable solution, even if I had something appropriate, and as far as I know nothing appropriate exists, short of making something from scratch. I will check to see if the burner tube in the boiler is fully intact with no issues.