Quentin Skinner, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, said it was a "disgrace and a horror" that the number of postgraduate places in arts and humanities studies was being cut by a third next year.

Professor Skinner, a Fellow of Christ's College whose work has been translated into 23 languages, said: "It is very hard to understand why such a huge and arbitary cut should be made. We always have enough money to fight wars, but we don't seem to have enough money to educate talented young people."