No acceptable C compiler found in PATH when installing python

Question

I followed this post to install a new python environment on my shared hosting.

mkdir ~/src
wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.1/Python-2.7.1.tgz
tar -zxvf Python-2.7.1.tar.gz
cd Python-2.7.1
mkdir ~/.localpython
./configure --prefix=/home/<user>/.localpython
make
make install

The at This command line : ./configure --prefix=/home/<user>/.localpython I am getting this error:

checking for --enable-universalsdk... no
checking for --with-universal-archs... 32-bit
checking MACHDEP... linux3
checking EXTRAPLATDIR... 
checking machine type as reported by uname -m... x86_64
checking for --without-gcc... no
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cl.exe... no
configure: error: in `/home3/mikos89/Python-2.7.1':
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log' for more details.

How can I solve this issue? What am I doing wrong here?