Churchill is no longer worth five pounds

LondonThe five, ten, twenty and fifty pound notes are changing their design. Where previously, on the reverse, there was the face of Churchill, Jane Austen, Turner and Alan Turing, respectively, there will now be an animal from the British wildlife, chosen from a pre-selection of eighteen, selected by a group of experts. On June 3rd, a public consultation was opened for this purpose, which will close on July 3rd. The public can opt, among others, for the hedgehog, the puffin, the badger, the marten, the red fox or the buff-tailed bumblebee. The candidates to appear on the new paper money have been divided into three categories: mammals, birds, and a third group including amphibians, insects and fish. "Can you lend me a beaver?" may soon mean "can you lend me five pounds?". And "can you pass me a bumblebee?", may mean "can you pass me 50?" Mysteries of slang.

for the World Cup starting this Thursdayfor the World Cup starting this Thursday. But only for one detail. Because the fiver with Churchill's face and his inspiring words "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" (I have nothing to offer but blood, effort, tears and sweat) will stop changing hands. The fate of Austen, Turner or Turing banknotes has mattered little, and no one has raised a voice for their gradual replacement.

If we are to believe the comments of some political leaders, the Old Lion continues to be an untouchable myth in the country. And to remove his face from the five-pound notes – the most common circulation for the vast majority of Britons, even now, when only 15% of the population uses cash – is little less than sacrilege.

The leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has said that all of this means "erasing our history." The visible head of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, has gone further, making a geopolitical reading of the change. "I can't think of a worse time to do it. With a war underway in Europe, we should be celebrating British resistance against the Nazis and not removing Churchill from our banknotes. He deserves something better than being replaced by a badger."

The ultra Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party, has not lost his momentum: "Our great British banknotes bear the portraits of giant figures from our history like Winston Churchill. And now they propose to replace him with a beaver. I think that's a real absurdity."

Is it? In 2025, the Bank of England already indicated that it would begin the process of replacing the aforementioned banknotes, made of polymer, a very flexible plastic material and much more resistant than traditional paper. In a first public consultation, the themes on which the new design could be based were determined. Around 60% of the 44,000 responses received selected nature; architecture and monuments received 56% of the votes; historical figures 38%; arts, culture and sport 30%; innovation 23%; and outstanding achievements 19%. Participants could choose more than one option.

When last week Victoria Cleland, Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, presented the 18 species likely to accompany Charles III on the reverse of the banknotes, she recalled that the changes are periodic: "Since 1970, the Bank has included numerous historical figures [in addition to the monarch of the day] on its currency who have contributed to shaping national thought and values". That first year, Shakespeare was Elizabeth II's partner on the £20 note. Since then, with more or less value, Adam Smith, Edward Elgar, Charles Darwin or Elizabeth Fry, among others, have appeared.

A myth demystified

Paradoxically, if the disappearance of the five-pound Churchill has been criticized by some political leaders, its appearance in 2016 was not generally applauded. Because the Old Lion is an English hero rather than a British one, and is admired above all by a very specific generation: those born in the immediate post-war period and the boomers (born and raised in the 60s and 70s).

A BBC poll in 2002 crowned Churchill as the greatest Briton of all time. Twenty years later, however, a new poll, in this case by the think tank Policy Exchange

, showed that only one in five citizens between 18 and 24 years old still has him on a pedestal. It is true, however, that 58% of those over 65 continue to view him positively. In general terms, however, Churchill now only receives the approval of 36% of all island inhabitants. And it should be remembered that approval has always been very uneven depending on where he is judged from. The veneration that since the late 60s of the 20th century has been aroused in England has never had a similar equivalent in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland.

Churchill, in any case, is already a cultural product that many link to their identity. An identity historically constructed in the 20th century through television, when millions of people watched the same events at the same time, whether they were royal weddings or State funerals. That of the premier

in 1965 was a key moment that cemented his heroic image on a large scale, reinforced by school and the cult in the United Kingdom of extolling resistance against the Nazis during the Second World War.

From a historical figure with very dark aspects – as Tariq Ali recalls in his book

Winston Churchill, sus tiempos, sus crímenes (Alianza Editorial) – he became a myth. And criticizing him means for some a setback for their own identity. But sixty-one years after his death, Churchill is no longer a shared or universal value for all Britons, but a figure that arouses much controversy: cultural, historical, and political. The five-pound notes of 2016 are worth much less than those of 1965.