[Andy McDandy]

Misinformed, inaccurate bollocks. For starters, the increase in universities (aka "jumped up polys") was 1992, long before Blair.

[Youngian]

If universities in Cambridge had massive brains like Dyson and thought that one up, the city might now have a vigorous science and tech private sector.

There should be a return to vocational colleges, with an emphasis on contact with local employment.
This was proposed by James Dyson in setting up just such a college in Wiltshire, the Dyson Institute, in 2017.