on March 19, 2026, 2:20 pm
How are people so ignorant and easily led that they'll buy into the right-wing outrage over Churchill's rotation off the £5 note, when the same people crying about it want to erase his actual legacy?
Another Angry Voice
Mar 19, 2026
The people spewing the most outrage about Winston Churchill being replaced by wildlife on the £5 note are the very same people who are determined to destroy Churchill’s finest legacy.
Last week’s performative outrage furore over the Bank of England’s decision to feature iconic British animals on the next series of banknotes was really something to behold.
Reform and Tory politicians; right-wing media hacks; and deluded propaganda-addled fools spewed torrents of outrage that their beloved Winston Churchill was being replaced on the £5 note, falsely attributing the decision to Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves; the Green Party; and the nebulous "woke left".
In reality the decision was made by the Bank of England after a period of public consultation, in which 44,000 people voted to honour British wildlife (60%), which came in above British landmarks (56%); historical figures (38%); arts, culture and sport (30%); innovations (23%); and noteworthy milestones (19%).
The right-wing outrage-peddlers didn’t just lie about how the decision was made and by whom, they also plucked random animals out of the air to scream about how Churchill was being replaced by "a picture of a beaver" (Nigel Farage); "a hedgehog" (Sharron Davies); "an owl" (Alex Armstrong); and "a squirrel" (Robert Jenrick).
On planet reality, the specific animals to appear on the £5, £10, £20, and £50 notes have not actually been decided yet. Phase two of the Bank of England’s consultation will let the public choose which are their favourite iconic British animals.
It actually seems like a fun and interesting exercise for the nation to choose which are the most quintessentially British of our native animals, but to the right-wing outrage-mongers, it’s horrifying proof of Britain’s national decline because squirrels are woke! Beavers are woke! Owls are woke! Hedgehogs are woke! Aaaargh!
Then there’s the fact that Churchill has only been featured on the £5 note for ten years, since 2016 when he replaced the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry; who replaced the Quaker railway pioneer George Stephenson in 2002; who replaced the Duke of Wellington in 1991.
Replacing Churchill on a banknote isn’t like deleting the man’s legacy, it’s entirely normal. Nobody stays on British banknotes forever, not even the Queen.
Talking of Churchill’s legacy, it’s worth pointing out that most of the right-wingers who spewed such outrage and outright lies about the banknote redesign are extremely keen on deleting Churchill’s finest legacy, the European Convention on Human Rights.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, European nations came together to draw up a charter of fundamental human rights in an effort to ensure nothing like the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust could ever happen in Europe again.
Winston Churchill and his wartime cabinet ally, turned Labour rival, Clement Attlee were two of the strongest proponents of these new European human rights.
Winston Churchill was a leading figure at the founding congress at The Hague in 1948; Clement Attlee signed the UK up in 1950; and then Churchill’s government ratified it in 1953.
It was a great example of the British left and right putting their differences aside for the greater good, and it’s widely regarded as one of the best things Churchill ever did.
Removing the UK from the ECHR and deleting our human rights (to join Russia and Belarus as the only European countries outside the ECHR) is a constant theme for Reform and Tory politicians; GB News talking heads; and right-wing propaganda hacks.
They’re absolutely desperate to tear down Churchill’s legacy, and erase the fundamental human rights he wanted to leave us.
It’s quite something for these right-wing politicians and propaganda-peddlers to kick up an enormous furore over Churchill being rotated off the £5 note, whilst simultaneously agitating for Churchill’s greatest legacy to be thrown in a skip and burned.
It’s pure symbolism above substance.
They want Churchill to be seen as an empty emblem of Britishness, but they openly despise the substance of what the man wanted to leave as a safeguard for future generations.
They want cult-like adoration of the figure and his status as a wartime leader, but complete ignorance of his post-war efforts to ensure that European people would never suffer such horrors again.
It’s such a sad spectacle to see people being so ignorant and easily-led that they actually fall for this absurdly hypocritical right-wing culture war grift.
They’ll mindlessly agree with the likes of Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick when they spew faux-outrage and outright lies about Churchill being rotated off the £5 note, but then wilfully vote for parties like Reform and the Tories, even though they’re absolutely desperate to erase Churchill’s greatest political legacy.
Responses « Index