Lecturers' union says European data shows Britain risks languishing in 'mid-table obscurity' due to rising cost of learning

The UK has a smaller proportion of adults with A-levels or their equivalent than Poland or Bulgaria, an analysis by the European Union's official statistics agency shows.

Several former eastern bloc countries now have adult populations that are more highly educated than the UK's, the Eurostat data reveals. They include Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria.

Statisticians ranked 33 countries according to the percentage of their adult population aged 25 to 64 who had completed upper secondary school – the equivalent to A-levels – in 2010.

The UK was 19th, with almost a quarter of adults (24%) not having A-levels or the equivalent. Lithuania came top with 8% of adults failing to complete the equivalent of sixth-form courses. Turkey was bottom, with 72% of its adults without A-levels.

Former Communist countries such as Poland (11%) and Bulgaria (21%) outperformed the UK. On average across the 33 countries, 27% of adults had not completed sixth-form study.

The lecturers' union, the University and College Union, said the figures showed the UK was languishing in "mid-table obscurity".

Sally Hunt, the union's general secretary, said there was a "very real possibility" that coalition reforms could lead to the country sliding further down the table in future years. She said the near-trebling of university tuition fees to up to £9,000 a year and restrictions on university places would have a detrimental effect on the nation's qualifications.

However, a spokeswoman from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose remit includes universities, said the coalition was overhauling the school system to ensure the poorest could study at college and university and creating thousands more higher-level apprenticeships.

Last month, ministers said there would be fewer university places at English universities this autumn. In previous years, an extra 10,000 places had been created to accommodate demand, but these will not be available this year. Some 5,000 places for universities that over-recruit have also been taken away.

The BIS spokeswoman said the number of full-time undergraduates in 2012-13 would remain at record levels.

In December 2010, a study of 65 countries showed the UK had slipped down world education rankings in maths, reading and science, and had been overtaken by Poland and Norway. The study, compiled by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, revealed that the UK's reputation as one of the world's best for education was at risk.

Health select committee to say government's health reforms have failed to integrate care for a rapidly ageing population

Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms have failed to come up with the plans and the cash for an integrated system of health and social care to cope with an ageing population, a group of MPs said on Tuesday.

The health select committee says that elderly people are deeply reliant on public services, accounting for 50% of those in social housing, 70% of hospital beds and 91% of those needing nursing care.

Despite ministerial promises, the MPs say there is no "joined-up approach" to dealing with elderly people. The committee warns that "although the government has signed up to the idea of integration, little action has taken place to date. The committee does not believe the proposals in the health and social care bill will simplify this process."

The MPs take issue with ministers who said the most "integrated" parts of the NHS – where social care and health budgets were brought under the control of a "care trust" – were "experiments which are now over".

The committee says that by ensuring elderly people get help at home rather than waiting until they can only be treated in hospital, care trusts have reduced the number of hospital admissions by 30%. Stephen Dorrell, the chair of the committee, said ministers had not reached an "attractive conclusion [by saying] these were experiments that were now closed".

Dorrell also questioned the government's assertion that there was enough money for councils to pay for care for elderly people. Ministers had claimed that they were putting an extra £2bn into local authorities' social care budgets.

The committee's report says that this is "not sufficient to maintain adequate levels of service quality", while an analysis for the King's Fund says a funding gap of £1.2bn could open up by 2014 unless councils can achieve unprecedented efficiency savings.

Many experts say that elderly patients are left confused by a system where they have to repeatedly give their details, undergo unnecessary repeat tests, and are left on their own to negotiate with councils, the NHS and welfare agencies.

The NHS Confederation, which represents managers in the health service, said that "while promotion of integration is written into the bill, the creation of new bodies and the division of responsibilities for various services risks fragmenting care more, rather than less. This is a particular worry for older people, who tend to have more than one illness and so require integrated care from different services across health and social care."

In a damning assessment, the MPs say Lansley's reforms are built on the "hope" that GPs, hospitals and councils will respond to payments for working together. Instead, the MPs argue that there should be a body set up just to commission services for elderly people, drawing on budgets from health, social care and welfare.

The committee also said that the proposals put forward by the economist Andrew Dilnot for capping the amount of money that people were liable for to pay for care in their old age were "an important element... but not the whole answer". Both Labour and the government are seeking consensus over the vexed issue of social care but so far talks have yielded little.

Labour said the select committee had shown that instead of "focusing on what older people and their families really need, the government has instead wasted 18 months on its disastrous and wasteful NHS reorganisation".

Liz Kendall, the shadow social care minister, said: "Some of the best examples of integrated care have been achieved by care trusts, which will be swept away by the government's own bill."

The minister for care services, Paul Burstow, said: "We know that urgent reform of the care and support system is needed. We will be responding to this report and the Dilnot Commission this spring, with full proposals for reform of adult social care in a white paper and progress report on funding reform.

"Integrated care should be the norm. That's why we asked the NHS Future Forum to specifically work on this issue. They told us there is no single silver bullet when it comes to integration."

Cristina Kirchner warns of 'grave risks to international security' and states intention to prevent war over natural resources

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has accused Britain of "militarising" the south Atlantic, and said she would seek UN intervention to prevent a war against Argentina for its natural resources.

The president warned of "grave risks to international security" if what she characterised as Britain's aggressive colonial impulses were not reined in. "I want to ask the British prime minister to give peace a chance, give peace a chance, not war."

Fernández spoke at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires in front of a large map of the Falkland Islands painted in the blue and white colours of the Argentinian flag.

The announcement sought to internationalise the dispute and raise pressure on London to discuss sovereignty. But Fernández did not close Argentina's airspace to flights between Chile and the Falklands, as some islanders had feared.

Britain has dispatched the destroyer HMS Dauntless along with Prince William, a search and rescue pilot, claiming both deployments were routine, amid escalating tension prior to the 30th anniversary of the war. Both sides have accused the other of trying to distract from domestic economic woes.

Fernández summoned politicians and veterans of the 1982 Falklands war for her speech on Las Malvinas. "I have instructed our foreign minister to protest at the UN [against] the militarisation of the south Atlantic which implies a grave risk for international security, precisely when we see in other countries situations that become unmanageable. The coming wars will be for natural resources and Argentina is one of the richest regions in world in those resources," she said. The president also promised to lift secrecy over a 1982 military report, named after General Benjamin Rattenbach, which was commissioned by Argentina's former military dictatorship.

Fernández has mobilised much of South America and the Caribbean in a diplomatic and commercial squeeze. Ships flying the Falklands flag are barred from the region's ports, depriving the islands of bananas and other fresh fruit.

She sought to widen the row by including Spain in the list of British colonial victims. "It is an anachronism in the 21st century to still have colonies, there are only 16 cases in the world, of which 10 are British and we've seen in recent days how the Spanish claim regarding Gibraltar has been renewed."

After a decade of relative calm, tension flared last year when Argentina protested at oil drilling in Falkland waters. Two weeks ago, Argentina's official news agency, Telam, started a Malvinas page with banner pictures of Argentinian jet fighters, helicopters, tanks and soldiers.

A correspondent for the newspaper Clarin reported harsh sentiments from Stanley on Tuesday. The article quoted islanders referring to "fucking Argies" and was illustrated with a photograph of a gift shop mug with an altered map of South America that replaced Argentina with blue emptiness named "Mierda Sea". Mierda means "shit" in Spanish.

A summit of leftwing leaders in Venezuela last weekend backed Fernández's campaign as a pan-regional cause. Her Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez, said Caracas would support its ally in a military conflict.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The people of the Falkland Islands are British out of choice. They are free to determine their own future and there will be no negotiations with Argentina over sovereignty unless the islanders wish it."

The benefits to older people of integrating care services can be seen in Torbay. But they may vanish into a funding gap

Social care funding is a lottery: but one with an almost unlimited liability instead of a fabulous prize. As a former GP I remember the shock felt by families, used to free NHS treatment, when faced with eye-watering bills for the care of an elderly relative at home or in residential care. The dawning realisation that there would be absolutely no free assistance until their assets had fallen to £23,250 led some to decline any help at all until a crisis hospital admission made that inevitable. Sometimes, earlier help might have avoided the fall and fracture that led to the loss of independence.

On Wednesday the health select committee publishes our recommendations for the future of social care in England and Wales. Negotiations are continuing behind the scenes about how to split funding responsibility between the state and individuals. The Dilnot commission, which provided an independent review of social care funding last summer, recommended a cap on the total contribution of somewhere between £25,000 and £50,000, together with a rise in the means-tested asset threshold to £100,000.

But this will mean that those with a property valued at £200,000 will lose relatively more of their assets than those with a property worth £500,000. An alternative would be to set the cap based on the length of time that care has been received whilst adjusting for different level of care needs. The reality is that any system is likely to result in some feeling unfairly disadvantaged, and doesn't alter the fact that others will face no costs at all if they have never saved.

The reason for setting these caps, however, is not just about fairness but to allow the development of financial products such as equity release or conventional pre-funded insurance. At present there is no market as the costs are unlimited. Even taking on the Dilnot proposals is no guarantee that such products will emerge or be trusted in the current climate.

While for some the key question will be the level of the caps on future liabilities, the more important question should be how to make sure the care system is fit for purpose. Unless we have a clear goal of avoiding unnecessary admissions and encouraging elderly people to remain independent at home, then both the human and financial costs will continue to spiral out of control.

The Law Commission found it difficult to define social care but easier to set out its purpose: "to promote or contribute to the wellbeing of the individual". That of course is also the purpose of the health service and social housing, and the long-standing separation of these three services for older people has resulted in fragmentation and inefficiency. Piecemeal progress has been made in areas such as Torbay, in Devon, where unnecessary emergency admissions have been reduced through rapid assessments and provision of equipment and support.

But more needs to be done to protect and encourage these integrated care trusts. The social enterprise Turning Point identified that for every pound spent on integrating health, housing and social care, £2.65 was saved. Without integration, patients will continue to face delays or duplicated assessments and services which may be completely inappropriate for their own situation. And there is a risk that this issue will drop off the agenda as newly formed clinical commissioning groups take over the controls from dismantled primary care trusts.

While it is painfully obvious to those caring for those with complex needs that there is a gap between the funding and provision of social care for older people, this has yet to be acknowledged by the Department of Health. Paul Burstow, the care services minister, cites the £2bn a year being transferred to social care – but with money coming out of council budgets, that gap is set to get wider. The health committee heard evidence that some councils are already tightening their eligibility criteria and increasing fees to make ends meet.

We agreed with the Dilnot commission that social care is both inadequately funded and that the distribution of funding between health, social care housing and benefits needs rebalancing. While there remain different commissioners for all these services, at a time of tight budgets they will retreat to their silos to protect their own funding. It is time for a single commissioner for people with complex needs to take a strategic overview of health, social care and housing. We should make sure the service delivers the most appropriate care to allow people to keep their dignity and independence.

But the outcomes we expect must be clearly set out – or the needs of older people may continue to be sidelined.

Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree

Report warns that military would struggle to run Libya-level campaign in future while sustaining other commitments

Britain would struggle to conduct another campaign like the one carried out in Libya and still sustain its other military commitments because of the impact of sweeping defence cuts, a parliamentary report has warned.

The government also failed to reconcile the "apparent conflict between the military and political objectives" in Libya – whether the aim was to protect Libyan civilians or to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power – and needs to be much more transparent about how it calculates the cost of such operations, MPs say.

The report from the defence select committee released on Wednesday praises Britain's involvement in the Operation Ellamy campaign in Libya, but raises several concerns. They include Nato's reliance on the US and the Royal Navy being forced to halt routine tasks to concentrate on the operation in the Mediterranean.

MPs argue that the Libya campaign took place before most of the cuts demanded by the strategic defence and security review. They say ministers need to revise their assessments of whether Britain could undertake a similar campaign.

"We believe the government will face significantly greater challenges should an operation of similar size be necessary in the future and it will need to be prepared for some difficult decisions on prioritisation," the report says. "We consider that Operation Ellamy raises important questions as to the extent of the UK's national contingent capability. We urge the government to review the UK's capacity to respond to concurrent threats. This work should be conducted as a matter of urgency before the next strategic defence and security review."

The 100-page report singles out pressure on the Royal Navy and highlights how important tasks, such as counter-drugs operations, "were not able to be carried out due to meeting the Libya commitment". And it pointed out that the US provided critical equipment, such as refuelling aircraft and unmanned drones, as well as intelligence. This may not be available in the future, the report says.

MPs also highlighted confusion over the interpretation of the UN resolution, which allowed for the protection of civilians, but not for the removal of Gaddafi. "Although it is difficult to see how the mission could have been successfully completed without [his] losing power, we are concerned that this, rather than the protection of civilians … came to be seen by some countries as an integral part of the mission. The apparent conflict between the military and political objectives meant that the government failed to ensure that its communication strategy was effective in setting out the aims of the operation.

"In future, the government's communication strategy needs to be more effective so that the public are confident of the aims and goals of such operations."

The report urges ministers to provide an estimate of the number of civilian casualties caused by all those involved in the fighting – Nato forces, those under the command of the National Transitional Council, and pro-Gaddafi troops.

James Arbuthnot, the committee chairman, said: "The mission in Libya was successful … the real test is whether the success of this mission was a one-off or whether the lessons it has highlighted mean future missions can be successfully undertaken."

Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, insisted Britain could continue to juggle all its commitments despite the multibillion-pound black hole in the defence budget. "We retain the capability to project power abroad and meet our Nato obligations," he said.

Jim Murphy, Labour's shadow defence secretary, said the cuts had downgraded Britain's military flexibility. "As global uncertainty grows, daily threats are becoming harder to tackle and Britain may no longer be able to perform such a leading military role in the world."

PM to get behind Andrew Lansley as No 10 suggests it may have taken eye off ball, allowing opposition to reforms to grow

David Cameron is to rally behind his health secretary Andrew Lansley on Wednesday and insist that the coalition will force its health and social care bill on to the statute book despite growing opposition within the NHS and the Conservative party.

Speculation over Lansley's future in the cabinet was sparked by an unnamed No 10 insider being quoted saying he should be "taken out and shot".

The briefing was described as unauthorised, but No 10 acknowledged it may have taken its eye off the ball, allowing opposition to the bill to re-emerge.

Cameron and Lansley have met within the last 48 hours to discuss tactics. There is widespread frustration inside Downing Street at the way in which the professions were brought on side, but then slipped from the coalition's grasp over the past two months.

Cameron is to undertake a series of NHS events next week, and is said to be confident that opposition to the bill in the Lords will be overcome. He is determined to set up the battle as one between a bureaucrat-run NHS and a doctor-run NHS.

Peers are due to start the crucial report stage on the bill on Wednesday, and some of the most controversial sections on competition are unlikely to be completed until late March by which time the local election campaign will be underway.

The shadow cabinet agreed to make Drop the Bill, and NHS closures one of its local election campaign themes. The Liberal Democrat spring conference starting on 9 March may also see grassroots pressure for the parliamentary party take a tougher line.

Lord Owen, the former SDP leader, took the unusual step of suggesting NHS staff had been misled into believing Cameron's election guarantees on the NHS due to the fact that his late son Ivan had been disabled.

He writes on his blog: "David Cameron should remember the words he spoke about the NHS during the election. Most of those who work in the health service were aware of his own late son's illness and felt that when he spoke about the NHS not having any more top-down reorganisations, he carried the conviction of someone who had real experience of what the NHS represented in British life".

He said Cameron is now the only man that can abandon the bill, saying if he did so "the NHS would heave a collective sigh of relief and next day start to implement, under existing legislation, those aspects on which there is widespread agreement".

Cameron's staff were privately angered by Owen's remarks, but refused to comment.

Pressure also mounted on the Lib Dems, with Nick Clegg accused by Labour of "abject betrayal" over his support for Lansley's bill.

The Labour deputy leader, Harriet Harman, claimed in the Commons that the reforms would pave the way for NHS hospitals to earn up to half of their income from private work, putting NHS patients "at the back of the queue".

Clegg defended the changes, saying the alternative to reform would be to "condemn a number of hospitals into outright financial crisis".

At least nine Lib Dem MPs have also signed an early day motion demanding that Lansley is forced to publish an independent risk report carried out into the reforms, which critics claim warned that the planned changes to allow GPs to commission health services on behalf of patients would lead to a surge in costs.

Senior Lib Dems expect the Lords to inflict some defeats on the coalition over the bill, but even opponents are not expecting a rebellion as strong as that against the welfare reform bill last month.

Speaking to The House magazine, Clegg appeared to recognise dissent in his own ranks, saying: "Let's be blunt: I'm asking, day in, day out, Liberal Democrat peers to vote on things that they wouldn't do in a month of Sundays if it was a Liberal Democrat government."

Clegg also praised Lady Williams, one of the bill's strongest critics in the Lords, claiming that as a result of her intervention the bill was "a whole lot better than it would have been otherwise, a whole lot better".

The reforms have come under fire from an unprecedented coalition of critics, including the Royal College of GPs, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives, and a joint editorial by three influential health journals: the British Medical Journal, the Nursing Times and the Health Service Journal.

More than 90% of those who voted in a British Medical Journal poll believe the planned health reforms should be scrapped. Of 2,947 votes cast on bmj.com over the last week, 2,706 said the reforms should go while 241 said they should stay.

Private equity investor with a passion for progressive causes, Labour politics – and Nottingham Forest Football Club

Nigel Doughty was a big man, successful in business, with generosity to match. Tall, good-looking and clever, yet modest and unassuming, he never lost contact with his working-class roots in Newark, in Nottinghamshire. He was found dead at the age of 54 in the gym at his home - unexpectedly given his degree of fitness.

The connection with his roots was most dramatically expressed in his support for Nottingham Forest Football Club, which he had owned since 1999. Though he always kept a low profile, over the years he loaned the club almost £100m, knowing the chances of ever seeing the money again were slim.

He knew, too, that the likelihood of the club ever winning a European title again in his lifetime was slimmer: he loved to show off the European Cup replica in the boardroom, a reminder of the Brian Clough era that had cemented his obsession with Forest in his early 20s. And he knew, and often complained, that football finances were crazy, and totally unsustainable.

The last time I spoke to him was five days before his death, while watching Burnley beat his team 2-0. He was in Berlin, following the game via the internet. Businessmen around the world were used to Nigel skipping meetings to watch his club.

A solid Labour supporter, at fundraisers Nigel was always the one the auctioneer looked to for a nod when others started to flag. Our conversation reflected his usual enthusiasms and preoccupations - passionate about the club, pessimistic about the match, confident about his own business despite the economic gloom.

In 1985, he and Dick Hanson started the partnership that eventually became their private equity firm, Doughty Hanson, and Nigel remained co-chief executive until 2009. One of the most successful such enterprises in the world, it specialises in buying all or part of companies, turning them round and selling them on for a profit. Its global reach is reflected in offices in London, New York, Paris, Munich, Frankfurt, Milan, Stockholm, Luxembourg and Prague.

Companies and brands bought and/or sold by Doughty Hanson ranged from the luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer to The Priory clinic, from sportswear firm Umbro to Vue cinemas, from Hovis bread to Mr Kipling cakes. In 2005, they made a £300m profit on their five-year tenure of RHM, the former Ranks Hovis McDougall, and Doughty immediately stepped up his flow of cash to Forest.

Private equity gets a bad press, a lot of it deserved. But Nigel had real values and they were reflected in the way he did business. His was the first private equity firm to sign up to a UN charter on responsible investment, calling on investors to take into account social, environmental and corporate governance issues rather than focus entirely on short-term profit. When they bought a major Danish energy company, they kept union representation on the board.

Nigel's thinking contributed to the development of arguments about "responsible capitalism" under Ed Miliband, and last year he presented a paper on small businesses which is being considered as part of Labour's policy review. An assistant treasurer of the party, Nigel gave it £3.6m before the last election, and both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown benefited from his advice, ideas and touches of moral support.

His Labour politics came from his upbringing and his belief that those who had should help those who didn't. His mother, Mercia Doughty, had worked as a nurse at Newark hospital, whose new endoscopy centre and pre-operative assessment unit he helped fund with a £1m donation. When Nigel was seven, his father, Ted, introduced him to the terraces of the City Ground.

Nigel studied at Magnus school, Newark, and Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, gaining an MBA in 1984. Later he founded the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at Cranfield School of Management, supporting a programme to teach business students how to pursue responsibility and sustainability alongside the search for profits. He set up other foundations to further the aims of medical, children's, educational and sports charities.

Tony Roberts, Nigel's English teacher at Magnus School and now the leader of Newark and Sherwood district council, told the Nottingham Evening Post: "He made use of his success, he didn't clutch it to himself, he did some good with it and will be remembered for his tremendous generosity."

Nigel is survived by his wife, Lucy, whom he married in 2004, and their two sons; by his son and daughter from his first marriage, to Carol, which ended in divorce in 1997; and by his father. His mother predeceased him.

• Nigel Edward Doughty, businessman, philanthropist and football club owner, born 10 June 1957; died 4 February 2012

Dave and Vladimir. Vladimir and Dave. Democracy's great double act

• At at time of rising intolerance, it seems doubly important that those who cherish democracy stick together. The Syria impasse shows that we have some way to go. But examples of good practice are spreading. "I propose introducing a rule for a mandatory parliamentary review of any legislative initiative that has more than 100,000 supporting signatures on the internet. A similar practice exists in the UK." So said Vladimir Putin, writing for Comment is free. He looks to us. The PM's ideas are his ideas. Makes you proud, doesn't it?

• Great interest in the agreeable terms and conditions secured by Ed Lester, chief executive of the Student Loans Company. His taxation arrangements caused the biggest kerfuffle. But it was also noted that Lester flies from his home in Buckinghamshire to the office in Glasgow, and is billeted in a taxpayer-funded flat – benefits worth £500 a week. And it's not just him. Look at the 2010/11 accounts for the Serious Fraud Office, and arrangements for the chief executive there, Phillippa Williamson. "The benefit in kind for the chief executive officer is estimated to be £27,600 for the payment of travel and hotel costs for home to work travel incurred from 1 April up to 31 March 2011." She lives in the Lake District. The office is in London. Still, can't blame Williamson, even if her deal is one that Prospect union members at the SFO can only dream of. Get on your bike and look for work, was the mantra, so she did.

• A difficult time too for our European mascot, Godfrey "Eight pints" Bloom, Ukip's man for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. There he was last week, riding high, proud as a peacock, baiting the pre-eminent lobby group for gays and lesbians in Europe. But then poor old Godders, he came a cropper. Into the chamber of the European parliament he went, a bit squiffy on something less than eight pints, and – as he admitted to the website Political Scrapbook – a little bit high on prescription drugs to alleviate the pain from a riding injury. Didn't go well. He rambled on about women's rugby clubs while colleagues shook their heads in sadness and disbelief. If he had any credibility to lose it would have all gone.

• Bauble time again at the Oldie Awards, where collective wisdom and longevity are celebrated with an alcohol-fuelled gathering at Simpson's-in-the-Strand. It's a good lunch for the high priest of lunch, justice minister Kenneth Clarke, who emerges as Oldie of the Year. And for Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, named Fashion Icon of the Year. He presents in glowing purple. Also for Baroness Trumpington, named Peer of the Year for youthfully showing her middle digit to the former defence minister Lord King. The gags come courtesy of Sir Terry Wogan. He wells knows his audience. "After many years of marriage," says Sir Terry, "a wife calls from the kitchen for her husband to come downstairs and make mad passionate love to her. He does so, then asks: 'What was that all about?' 'Oh, the egg-timer's broken,' she replies."

• And while people complain that the standard of British comedy is not what it was, an honourable mention to the Local Government Information Unit. On the back of the £18m spent dealing with the Dale Farm debacle, with all the rancour and controversy, and bearing in mind the fact that many of the travellers merely skipped on to the site next door, occasioning another round of eviction notices, whoever nominated Basildon council leader Tony Ball for leader of the year award has timing not seen since the demise of Eric Morecambe. That's the gift. Being able to raise a laugh without even trying.

• Finally, with the move to Salford and the prospect of impending change at the top of the BBC, staff seek reassurance on issues that most affect them. "Can a member of BBC staff be sacked for not having a TV licence or for having sex on the premises," a worker bee from 5 Live asks managers via the internal magazine Ariel. "For the record I have a TV licence and haven't had sex in the office," he says. Still, as well to know these things.Twitter: @hugh_muir

On Charles Dickens' 200th birthday, Britain has some striking similarities to when the author was alive

Shifting blame on to the jobless under the guise of positive thinking is not only demeaning but sinister

Among a pile of papers and leaflets in the Warrington branch of Cheshire Training Associates there are two American self-help books. The New Dynamics of Winning and Seeds of Greatness are both by Denis Waitley, a graduate of the US navy academy at Annapolis and mentor to astronauts and American football stars. The former brazenly offers the chance to "gain the mindset of a champion"; the blurb on the back of the latter promises "secrets" that will help any reader to "become a happier, healthier and more successful person".

Waitley-ism, perhaps, sits awkwardly with the town outside, in which youth unemployment increased by 230% in 2011 and gaining the mindset of a champion must be challenging, at least.

But his credo fits perfectly into what happens in these offices: the day-to-day operation of the government's work programme. In Warrington the standard payment-by-results contract was given to the security firm G4S, who outsourced the work to Cheshire Training Associates. The impression is of bright, sparky people – "employment consultants", they call them – seeing to a machine that runs on one article of faith: that unemployment should be understood not in the context of a dead job market but the knowledge, motivation, expectations and behaviour of the individual.

At the end of last week an indication of the essential idea came from the Conservative work and pensions minister, Maria Miller, when she appeared on Radio 5 Live. "There isn't a shortage of jobs – what there can be is a lack of an appetite for some of the jobs that are available," she said. "I don't think it's a lack of jobs at the moment … I think it really is making sure that we've got people knowing where those jobs are."

You're generally eligible for referral to the work programme if you've been out of work for a year, though for those aged 18-24, nine months is sufficient.

When we asked for firsthand testimony about what it involves from readers of Comment is free, we received about 300 online posts and emails: accounts of dead-end unpaid "work placements"; stories from people in their late 50s who couldn't see any way back into work; suggestions that, in the face of rising unemployment, some of the work programme's providers are barely bothering their clients.

One of the most incisive responses came from someone freshly inducted into the care of DWP contractor and multinational group Maximus. "The exploratory talk centered around our perceived failure to achieve employment," they wrote. "The woman asked each of us for potential 'barriers to employment', which seemed to be a general trawl through people's private lives … the national employment crisis was not suitable for discussion, apparently."

Thirty years ago Norman Tebbit told the story of his father's bike, and attracted not just controversy but infamy; now, much the same thinking is tightly built into how the state treats the unemployed. This is unsettling: you could easily think of it as being close to a moral outrage. There again, before lefty ire got the better of you, you might just as easily wonder whether, if the only option available to the unemployed is to stoically look for work, why not equip them with the skills and mindset such a grind requires, and encourage the habit of positive thinking?

The problem is that the infusion of the work programme's gospel into individual minds can seem not just sinister but demeaning. In Warrington the DWP's press person introduces me to 27-year-old Richard Dunn, who has spent time on the programme and now has a job, of sorts: as a driver's mate for furniture chain SCS on a six-month contract. He was unemployed for nine months. At the peak of his search for work, he says he was averaging 25 to 30 applications a week, most of which did not even get a reply. So, I wonder, in the end, does he think that the fact he was unemployed was his fault?

"Yeah," he says. "I do. I think I should have applied for more. I should have picked myself up in the morning, got out, come to a place like this – tried more. When you're feeling down you start blaming the world for your mistakes … You feel the world owes you. And it doesn't. You owe the world: you have to motivate yourself, and get out there, and try. And that's what this place helped with." I mention the 2.6 million people officially out of work, and suggest that his time on the dole was possibly not because of any failings on his part. "But half the people don't want to work," he says.

Which brings us to an immovable aspect of the national understanding of unemployment. Do not think that the recasting of joblessness as a matter of individual failings, or the shift to conditional benefits, are anywhere near as controversial as some – myself included – would like. Look at the latest British Social Attitudes survey: when presented with the suggestion that "unemployment benefits are too high and they discourage the unemployed from finding jobs", 54% agreed, up from 35% in 1983.

Sped on its way by pop psychology, the free market conception of joblessness has oozed into the national consciousness; as more encounters in Warrington prove, it even defines the thoughts of some of the unemployed themselves. On this evidence there is not just no such thing as society – by implication there must be no such thing as the economy, either.