Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:01 pm  

Following complaints (including from a female Tory) about the lack of women other than HMQ portrayed on our banks notes, our new Guv of BoE is to make an announcement on the subject within a month. Assuming bank notes will not be abolished, who do you reckon with be portrayed?

My guess with Tories in power and a Canadian Guv, we may see that late Magaret Hilda Thatcher.

What do you think of that prospect?

(I can just envisage the Yorkshire folk on here cuddling up in bed at night to their life savings bundled in a wad, with Maggie's visage smiling at them!).

Re: Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:08 pm  

I think the whole thing is a storm in a teacup.

Over the centuries, women have been held back by social convention and the sheer practicality of child-rearing etc.
Whilst we are leaving those times behind at last, it is still the case that most of history was made by men, so, of the four denominations of banknote (£5, £10, £20, £50 ... any others?), if you put a woman on there, you are using up 25% of the space ... not really representative, is it?

My suggestion would be to have more than one portrait per denomination ... then we could be more representative.
Failing that, don't have people depicted at all.

While we are at it, we could lose the Queen from the notes ... we never had a monarch on them before her, so why now?

Thatcher on banknotes would push me to total debit card use.

Re: Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:12 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

I think the whole thing is a storm in a teacup.

Over the centuries, women have been held back by social convention and the sheer practicality of child-rearing etc.
Whilst we are leaving those times behind at last, it is still the case that most of history was made by men, so, of the four denominations of banknote (£5, £10, £20, £50 ... any others?), if you put a woman on there, you are using up 25% of the space ... not really representative, is it?

My suggestion would be to have more than one portrait per denomination ... then we could be more representative.
Failing that, don't have people depicted at all.

While we are at it, we could lose the Queen from the notes ... we never had a monarch on them before her, so why now?

Thatcher on banknotes would push me to total debit card use.

I reckon Thatcher will be proposed and I reckon their could be a backlash that is more than a storm in a teacup. Could be fun.

Re: Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:18 pm  

Dally wrote:

I reckon Thatcher will be proposed and I reckon their could be a backlash that is more than a storm in a teacup. Could be fun.

When the pound coin was introduced, it was for a while nicknamed The Thatcher.
Small, brassy and thought it was a sovereign.

Re: Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:22 pm  

IIRC the Mint have always had "back up" figures for bank notes in case there were printing problems with the suggested ones.

It is convention for this back up figure to move onto the bank note the next time one is changed. The position is currently held I believe by Jane Austen, so she would be the next logical choice.

Re: Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:42 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

When the pound coin was introduced, it was for a while nicknamed The Thatcher.
Small, brassy and thought it was a sovereign.

Are you here all week?

Re: Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:45 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

IIRC the Mint have always had "back up" figures for bank notes in case there were printing problems with the suggested ones.

It is convention for this back up figure to move onto the bank note the next time one is changed. The position is currently held I believe by Jane Austen, so she would be the next logical choice.

And this year being the 200th anniversary of the publication of P&P ...

Re: Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 1:44 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

IIRC the Mint have always had "back up" figures for bank notes in case there were printing problems with the suggested ones.

It is convention for this back up figure to move onto the bank note the next time one is changed. The position is currently held I believe by Jane Austen, so she would be the next logical choice.

I think you're right, I heard something about her being next the other day.

I have to agree with El Barbudo in general though, I really don't get why it's an issue. Why would it matter if there wasn't a woman on any of the notes? Would it matter if there were no men?

Re: Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 2:45 pm  

carl_spackler wrote:

I think you're right, I heard something about her being next the other day.

I have to agree with El Barbudo in general though, I really don't get why it's an issue. Why would it matter if there wasn't a woman on any of the notes? Would it matter if there were no men?

Because some people get worried about such symbols.

Re: Bank notes : Thu Jul 04, 2013 3:55 pm  

Mintball wrote:

Because some people get worried about such symbols.

I still just don't understand why. If anything, it suggests to me a paranoia/inferiority complex about such things that has the potential to undermine genuine issues. It's pictures on a piece of paper, why does one of them have to be a woman for the sake of one of them being a woman? If there was a campaign for an individual person whom people thought worthy I'd see much more value in it, but this backwards approach of first deciding that one must be from a particular demographic and then scrabbling around for worthy candidates within that demographic just seems weird. Put anyone on there who seems worthy, and make the case for them on the merit of their achievements. I don't think it's healthy to base the case around their gender or ethnicity or anything similarly arbitrary, as IMO that can only cheapen your point and their standing.

I've often thought that very few people seem to stop short at campaigning for equality/fair treatment, they find problems where there aren't any and end up looking for superiority/preferential treatment.