Oxford Union makes Taylor Swift video plea

Oxford Union wants Taylor Swift to be their guest speaker.

Words from speeches at the union delivered by actors Morgan Freeman, Diane Kruger and Jack Gleeson, as well as departing Federation Internationale de Football Association president Sepp Blatter and biologist Richard Dawkins, have also been mashed together to recreate the lyrics of Swift’s hit song.

Oxford University’s debating society have released a very inventive mash-up video of Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off in a bid to persuade the singer to join them for a talk.

Charles Vaughan, the president of the Oxford Union, said the venerable student society, founded in 1823, was unable to book Swift in the past because of her touring schedule.

South Korean Gangnam Style singer Psy kicks the film off before Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Ian McKellen and Piers Morgan all make appearances.

The video, which took a week to edit, was originally envisaged to showcase the union to new students.

But now it’s found a higher objective.

“She’s a wonderful person to listen to”, he explained.

“There were two people working on the video editing, two people trawling through the catalogue of videos, and the rest of our committee was helping by suggesting changes”, Vaughan said.

Shake It Off is the lead single from Swift’s 1989, which has been the year’s bestselling album globally.

Oxford even received a response from The Malala Fund, the charity organisation led by female education activist Malala Yousafzai, who simply replied “brilliant”.

One of its early presidents was W.E. Gladstone, who went on to become prime minister.