Starmer’s further education plans augur well, but the policy detail will be telling

The PM's challenge is to make vocational options as attractive to parents and young people as higher eduction

Keir Starmer has joined a long line of ministers and prime ministers who have called time on Tony Blair's ambition for half of the nation's young people to go on to higher education.

Rishi Sunak, Gavin Williamson and now Starmer have all declared an end to Blair's famous 1999 pledge as a policy priority, and done so on the grounds that the focus on universities has come at the expense of vocational education and training such as apprenticeships.