Winston Churchill cashes in on British vote

On the eve of Adam Smith replacing Edward Elgar on the new £20 note, it’s revealed that three-quarters of Brits have no idea who Adam Smith is - or what the Scottish economist’s achievements were. Britons have insteadcalled for classic British icons Winston Churchill and Emmeline Pankhurst to be immortalised on our money, according to research by Virgin Money.

Britain’s greatest statesman, orator and Second World War leader Winston Churchillwon more than 52% of the vote, comfortably topping the male list. He swept the board, beating other much-respected greats including Stephen Hawking(8%), John Lennon(7%) and Spike Milligan (7%).

Tony Blair (0.9%) and his successor-in-waiting Gordon Brown (0.6%) - both could certainly do with borrowing some popularity from Sir Winston; only rock star junkie Pete Doherty(0.2%) kept them off the bottom of the table.

First in the female list is Emmeline Pankhurst(26%), who led the movement to win the right for women to vote and would no doubt welcome the current Equalities Review. She topped the list of females finishing just ahead of Diana, Princess of Wales (23%), with Jane Austen (12%), Margaret Thatcher (11%) and Beatrix Potter (9%) also polling highly.

Interestingly, current girlfriend of Prince William and our possible future Queen, Kate Middleton scraped only 0.2% of the vote. Astonishingly, she was even less popular than Big Brother loudmouth and much-maligned Jade Goody (1%) and page 3 glamour girl Keeley Hazell (1%)!

One in ten Brits believe Smith, ‘the father of economics’ who will appear on notes from 13 March, was a politician and 15% think he was an artist. Some more bizarre guesses on Smith’s claim to fame included that he was a footballer, a landscape gardener or ‘brother of John Smith – the beer maker’.

Jason Wyer-Smith of Virgin Money, who conducted the research, comments ‘Brits work hard enough to earn their money so perhaps we should all have more of a say on who’s faces we see when we spend it?’