after the university had voted in 1990 for the creation of a business school, and needed funds of £40 million. Opposition initially arose to the school due to the lack of a suitable site and the nature of management as an academic discipline, and Saïd said that he would reconsider his gift after a potential site on a sports ground at Mansfield Road in Oxford was voted against. The new building for the school opened in August 2001, designed by Edward Jones and Jeremy Dixon. It was accompanied by protests over Saïd's role in the Al-Yamamah arms deal. A new building at the school, the Thatcher Business Education Centre was opened by The Prince of Wales in 2013 and named by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2014 in the presence of Saïd and his wife, Rosemary. Nelson Mandela visited the Saïd Business School at the invitation of Saïd in 2002, to open the lecture theatre named in his honour. Saïd had donated over £70 million to the school by 2014, and he is a member of the University of Oxford's Chancellor's Court of Benefactors. The court consists of the largest individual donors to Oxford, and meets annually with senior officials from the university. Saïd's philanthropic efforts for the university have seen him honoured with the Sheldon Medal, the highest honour that Oxford bestows upon its benefactors. The Sheldon Medal is awarded annually to a member of the Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors that has 'made a strategic difference to the life of the university'. A bust of Saïd by Michael Rizzello stands at the entrance to the Saïd Business School, it was one of the last works sculpted by Rizzello before his death in 2004. Relationship with Margaret Thatcher Saïd was a passionate supporter of the British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and said of the effect of her premiership after the Winter of Discontent that 'We found we couldn't rely on British manufacturers any more. Then here she comes, this lioness. The honour of England is challenged in the Falklands and she sends an armada! She fights the most powerful union and defeats it.' and said that 'for me, her friendship is the biggest medal'. Saïd was a significant donor to Thatcher's Conservatives in the 1980s, donating at least £350,000 during her premiership. Saïd can no longer donate to British political parties due to his foreign citizenship. Saïd's wife, Rosemary,