Joseph Dinnage has an interesting CAPX piece on the wildlife on banknotes issue. Worth reading, although I'd call it another shift towards infantilisation as well as an act of historic cowardice. A two for one offer we might say.
Churchill vs hedgehogs
In Britain, we have grown up with not only the monarch on our currency, but also with the faces of some of our greatest countrymen and women. Jane Austen, Alan Turing, Winston Churchill, JMW Turner, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin and William Shakespeare: over the years, all these figures and more have appeared on our banknotes, serving as a regular reminder of the world-leading talent Britain is capable of producing.
Yet as the 21st century demonstrates to us with violent regularity, all beauty must die in the name of ‘progress’, and our banknotes will soon bear images of our native fauna, rather than the human beings who actually made this country great.
- Replacing Winston Churchill with hedgehogs on our banknotes is an act of historic cowardice
- The last thing we should be doing is subordinating our history to the politics of progressive interest groups
- If we do not champion our history, it gets forgotten
In Britain, we have grown up with not only the monarch on our currency, but also with the faces of some of our greatest countrymen and women. Jane Austen, Alan Turing, Winston Churchill, JMW Turner, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin and William Shakespeare: over the years, all these figures and more have appeared on our banknotes, serving as a regular reminder of the world-leading talent Britain is capable of producing.
Yet as the 21st century demonstrates to us with violent regularity, all beauty must die in the name of ‘progress’, and our banknotes will soon bear images of our native fauna, rather than the human beings who actually made this country great.
9 comments:
Gawain Towler has similar thoughts but with more rage https://gawaintowler.substack.com/p/the-slow-strangulation-of-britain?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=5591218&post_id=190610404&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1q3be7&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Perhaps one political benefit of switching away from famous people is that Stumbler will not feel aggrieved if he is left off banknotes?
You can imagine the committee meeting:
“So we all agree that Dickens, Shakespeare and Darwin were far too male, pale and stale. We definitely need some to put some women on the banknotes.”
“Didn’t we do Jane Austen and Florence Nightingale though?”
“They’re pale and stale too - and anyway they were both posh and Jane Austen probably profited somehow from the slave trade. No what we need is a load of notable women of colour from British history, like Mary Seacole and…and….er…..
Forget it, let’s have a hedgehog instead.”
I'd suggest Lola in Scotland with the hatchet and knife.
Peter - he puts it well, but rage doesn't come naturally to me. To my mind we lack the collective intelligence to be less collective and learn from more trial and error. It just isn't within us to do that and raging about it does nothing much, although it can produce some fine writing.
DJ - crikey, imagine Stumbler's portrait on a banknote. Nightmares don't come close.
Macheath - yes indeed, the committee meeting faces up to its lack of courage, it's near enough certain that this is how it went.
"Any reason to avoid a hedgehog? Nothing political about hedgehogs? We need to know before we commit."
"Nothing political about hedgehogs?" Well there was that explicitly racist comparison of the hedgehog and the fox. Berlin, wasn't it? No, not Irving.
James - that sounds like an invitation for Ofcash to butt in.
dearieme - sounds as if neither can be on a note without the other.
I suggest putting Amelia on the banknotes.
Peter - good idea, a genuine celebrity.
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