Cameron helps Python raise Oxford cash

Tory leader David Cameron and Michael Palin have been enlisted by their former alma mater Oxford University, to help it raise as much £1.25bn – a cash injection that is considered vital if it is to hold its own against super-funded, American Ivy League colleges like Harvard and Yale. The campaign, which is being touted as the biggest “money-raising project in European university history”, is appealing not just to former alumni, but also to philanthropists, a source of huge donations in the US.

Joining Cameron and Palin in the campaign are Sir Ronald Cohen, the venture capitalist, publisher Lord Weidenfeld, Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous atheist, and Sir Roger Bannister, who was still a student at Oxford when he achieved the record for running the four-minute mile. Representing the arts are Seamus Heaney and Mario Vargas Llosa. Oxford will use money to protect its unique one-on-one tutorial system, pay for hundreds of new fellowships, expand accommodation and library facilities.

The university has raised £575m so far. Wafic Said, the billionaire who was named in the controversial BAE arms deals, has pledged £25m to the college he founded, the Said Business School.

While Oxford and Cambridge still manage to hold their own among the top universities – they were recently ranked equal second best in the world, with Harvard in first place, in the Times - QS World University Ratings, there is a fear they may be eclipsed by higher education institutions in countries such as China and India. There are presently four Chinese universities in the top 40.