There are moments when a country reveals what it thinks of itself. Not in speeches, not in manifestos, but in the small, symbolic decisions that slip quietly into public life. The designs on its currency, for instance.
And so we arrive at the Bank of England’s latest idea: removing the giants of British history from our banknotes and replacing them with wildlife. Out go Churchill, Turing, Austen, Turner… figures whose minds and courage shaped the modern world. In come badgers, puffins and red squirrels.
Badgers.
One struggles to know where to begin.
This isn’t an attack on wildlife. No one loves animals more than I. The British countryside is magnificent. Puffins are delightful creatures and squirrels can be extremely intelligent and charming. But the question is not whether animals are pleasant. The question is what a nation chooses to honour.
For more than half a century, British banknotes carried the faces of extraordinary men and women. They were quiet reminders that this small island produced minds and leaders who changed the world. Every time a child held a note, there was a subtle message: someone from here did something extraordinary… and so could you.
They now want to replace that message with something softer, safer and far more revealing. Because the truth is this: animals are not controversial. They do not force us to confront history. They do not ask difficult questions. They do not remind us that great achievements come from flawed, complicated, very human individuals.
And that is precisely the point.
As Tom Tugendhat wrote in his Telegraph piece today, this decision tells a dismal story about national confidence. Nations that believe in themselves celebrate the individuals who built them. France once placed Voltaire and Pasteur on its francs. America still prints its founders on every dollar. It shows an understanding of something fundamental: national myth builds national confidence.
Britain, it seems, is losing the nerve to tell its own story. And so we get wildlife. Safe, neutral, pleasantly apolitical wildlife.
But the neutrality is an illusion. Because removing historical figures is not neutral. It is a choice… and a revealing one. It reflects a broader trend that many people can see unfolding around them.
Statues quietly disappearing. Streets renamed. Pubs changing titles that once carried centuries of history. Buildings rebranded. School curricula rewritten to emphasise the darkest chapters of our past while quietly discarding the achievements that made Britain one of the most influential nations in human history.
No serious person believes our history is spotless. Of course it is not. No civilisation’s is. But what is happening now is not historical balance. It is historical subtraction.
We are increasingly encouraged to view our past primarily as a catalogue of sins rather than a story of astonishing accomplishment… of science, literature, industry, law, exploration and democratic development.
The result is predictable. Young people are not being taught to understand their country. They are being taught to feel embarrassed by it.
A nation that loses pride in its story eventually loses the confidence to shape its future. And that is why this banknote decision matters far more than its designers probably imagine. Currency is not just money. It is storytelling.
Every note is a miniature national monument passed hand to hand millions of times a day. A quiet reminder of who we are and what we have achieved. Swap Churchill for a badger and something subtle changes. Not overnight. But gradually, imperceptibly.
The message becomes: greatness is awkward. Heroes are divisive. Safer to say nothing at all.
The problem with this philosophy is that nature abhors a vacuum… and so does culture. When you erase the story of a nation, something else will eventually replace it. Which raises another question. Where exactly was this public demand for wildlife banknotes? What survey produced this supposed groundswell of enthusiasm for replacing the men and women who shaped modern Britain with woodland mammals? Run the survey again now that people know what is being proposed. Ask the public whether they would rather see Churchill, Austen and Turing… or a puffin.
One suspects the answer might surprise the architects of this change.
Because for all the talk of declining patriotism, something interesting happens whenever Britain faces moments like this. People push back. Not because they believe their country is perfect. But because they know it is extraordinary.
Britain gave the world parliamentary democracy, the industrial revolution, modern computing, countless scientific breakthroughs, and a literary tradition that shaped the English language itself. It defeated fascism when much of the world trembled. It built institutions and legal systems that still underpin global stability. Our story is great.
Our story deserves to be told. It deserves to be remembered. And it certainly deserves better than being quietly replaced by a badger.
The real irony is that those who seem most eager to dismantle these symbols often underestimate the depth of attachment people feel toward their national story.
You can rename a street. You can pull down a statue. You can redesign a banknote. But you cannot easily erase the cultural memory of a people who know where they came from.
Love of country is a stubborn thing. It does not disappear simply because it becomes unfashionable in certain institutions. If anything, attempts to smother it tend to produce the opposite effect. People begin asking questions.
Why remove Churchill?
Why replace individuals with animals?
Why the constant rewriting of historical narratives?
And the more those questions are asked, the clearer the underlying issue becomes. This is not really about banknotes. It is about whether Britain still believes in its own story.
Because if we stop celebrating the men and women who built the country… if we replace them with carefully neutral symbols designed to offend no one, then we are quietly admitting something. That we are no longer sure who we are.
But here is the flaw in that calculation. Many millions of people in this country are still very sure. They know Britain’s history is wonderful and something to be proud of. They know it contains genius, courage and achievements that changed the course of humanity.
They do not see a reason to apologise for remembering that. And they certainly do not think the appropriate tribute to Alan Turing is an otter.
A confident nation honours its builders. It does not hide them. And so I say to those who want to erase our story:
We shall go on to the end.
We shall defend our history, whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight them in the committees and the consultations.
We shall fight them in the museums and the universities.
We shall fight them in the town halls and the council chambers.
We shall fight them in the renaming of streets and the pulling down of statues.
We shall fight them in the rewriting of textbooks and the editing of archives.
We shall fight them wherever they attempt, politely and progressively, to tidy away the extraordinary story of this country.
We shall fight them on our banknotes and in our monuments.
We shall fight them in our schools and in our newspapers.
We shall fight them wherever they try to tell us that Churchill must give way to a badger, that Nelson must surrender to a squirrel, and that the safest nation is one with no heroes at all.
We shall never accept that the answer to a complicated history is to erase it.
And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, the institutions of this country were to lose their nerve entirely, and all our statues were toppled, our streets renamed, and our banknotes scrubbed clean of every human achievement…
…then the memory of this island story would still live on in the minds of its people.
For history is not kept alive by committees. It is kept alive by a nation that refuses to forget.
By Claire Bullivant
Keir Starmer is a traitor to the British people- he tried very hard to stop brexit after 17.4m people voted to leave the EU.
Kemi Badenoch should call for Keir Starmer to resign !