Miracle! A new head of Oxford college who is not a dull Leftie

WITH film star friends, several million in the bank and a house in London’s swanky Notting Hill, entrepreneur Neil Mendoza would seem an unlikely candidate for the ascetic confines of academia.

However, I can report that Mendoza — who pocketed a fortune when he and his business partner, William Sieghart, sold their publishing business for £47 million in 2001 — is to become the next head of Oriel College, Oxford.

‘This should shake things up,’ says my man amid the dreaming spires. ‘At least he’ll make a change from all those dull Lefties.’

Mendoza could be the first entrepreneur to achieve such eminence in the modern era at Oxford, where heads of colleges have been drawn with dreary predictability in recent years from the ranks of superannuated Leftwing media executives. They include former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, who is

Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, and former Observer editor Will Hutton, Principal of Hertford College. Others have been drawn from the

bien-pensant chattering classes, such as Dame Helen Ghosh, exDirector General of the National Trust, who was recently installed as Master of Balliol College.

Mendoza, 58, is cut from different cloth. Back in 1999, when conventional wisdom said Britain’s economic survival depended on joining the euro, he campaigned against it.

The party to celebrate his becoming Provost should be lively. At his 40th birthday bash, Mendoza, who is now married to writer Amelia Wallace, was joined by guests including foppish actor Hugh Grant and Natascha McElhone, star of the hit U.S. TV series Californication.

Also there was Old Etonian Roddy Campbell, who presided over a louche party for his model daughters Olympia and Edie last summer while wearing bunny ears, fishnet stockings and a woman’s swimsuit.

An Oriel spokesman confirms: ‘The formal vote to elect Neil will take place at a governing body meeting on April 25.’