Oxford wants £1.25 billion. That is the target of the biggest fundraising drive in the university's history, announced last week.
This sum would, the university said, enable it to "sustain and enhance" its reputation and provide "security in a world of uncertain state funding and growing global competition
It didn't mention directly what is almost certainly one of its biggest ambitions: to use the loot to slip away from the ever-tightening squeeze of the Government.
Our Government, like some town hall functionary of limited comprehension but relentless ambition, has long regarded the clever clogs at Oxford with the deepest suspicion. It has rightly suspected that, with Oxford's fabled reputation for independent thinking, the university might not be suitably subservient to the New Labour mania for centrally imposed targets.
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