Alan Turing to feature on new £50 note

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48962557

by hanoz • 7 years ago

664 298 7 years ago

bbc.co.uk

jeffwass• 7 years ago

Title should probably be updated to explicitly say it’s Alan Turing who will feature on the note.

napolux• 7 years ago

#nospoiler :-)

dwardu• 7 years ago

And lose clicks?

quickthrower22• 7 years ago

Or gain clicks, given the audience. They’ll care more about Alan Turing than about a fiat currency.

rolltiide2• 7 years ago

they using bootleg Photoshop 6 at the Bank of England? yeesh

random42• 7 years ago

How do you know this?

rolltiide2• 7 years ago

just a reference to the low quality look of the composite image

ginko• 7 years ago

I sort of agree. The photograph seems cheap. What happened to engraved portraits on banknotes?

rvz• 7 years ago

I am going to have to agree with this, the other notes look professionally engraved and what we have here looks like it is rushed and a airbrushed photoshop crop for us to see.

ddalex• 7 years ago

Awesome recognition! I just wish people weren't such dicks to Turing in his lifetime.

mathieubordere• 7 years ago

+1 It breaks my heart when I think about what they did to him.

whatshisface3• 7 years ago

It might make you feel better to know that he was convicted under the age of consent law, which was 21 at the time. (The kid was 19.) It wasn't entirely fair because they made the age of consent higher for gays (edit: I had it wrong, the age of majority was 21 in all cases), but at least he wasn't convicted purely for being gay. The teenager was not punished.

pbhjpbhj3• 7 years ago

I feel like people would still react negatively to a 40-something picking up unknown teens (19, in the one case I know the details of) for casual sex? Particularly if that person were considered a security risk?

People [wrongly] get called a paedophile for such behaviour and get pilloried in the social press.

Aside: it always seemed like the simplest explanation for the strangeness around his arrest was that he was compromised (in the national security sense).

Of course none of that relates to his fantastic achievements in computing.

Fry (Christian fundamentalist) and Newton ( Christian fundamentalist writer) -- both of whom have been on bank notes -- probably wouldn't fair well in the court of public opinion nowadays either. Not sure Churchill would make it on anymore either tbh.

chimeracoder• 7 years ago

Not sure Churchill would make it on anymore either tbh.

Churchill was added to the note quite recently. Unfortunately, most British people seem to have a nearly uniformly positive opinion of Churchill, despite the unconscionable atrocities he committed.

tialaramex2• 7 years ago

Newton's thinking was not broadly acceptable to Christians in his day either. He was a Unitarian! He specifically didn't believe in the Trinitarian understanding of God that had already been essential to mainstream Christianity for centuries by that point.

Churchill was a drinker. There's plenty of evidence into the 21st century that functioning alcoholics are able to maintain status in most walks of life including politics. Or were you thinking of something else?

saagarjha2• 7 years ago

I feel like people would still react negatively to a 40-something picking up unknown teens (19, in the one case I know the details of) for casual sex?

You can call it whatever you'd like, but this isn't illegal today.

foldr3• 7 years ago

People [wrongly] get called a paedophile for such behaviour and get pilloried in the social press.

I've never seen anyone being accused of being a paedophile for having sex with a 19-year-old. Do you have an example? This frankly seems like a backhanded slur on Turing.

Not sure Churchill would make it on anymore either tbh.

Churchill was added to a bank note a mere three years ago.

dalbasal2• 7 years ago

Well deserved. War hero (possibly the greatest of the war) & science hero of the highest order. Mistreated terribly by the state for his efforts.

arcturus17• 7 years ago

Hate to be that guy, but the Great War is WWI

dalbasal2• 7 years ago

oops, fixed

jermy• 7 years ago

On a point of technicality - he was only two years old when the Great War started! (I think you meant the 2nd World War)

codeulike• 7 years ago

The formulae and the binary ticker tape are a nice touch.

thom2• 7 years ago

Shame he didn’t make it onto the £10 note tbh.

mises2• 7 years ago

Is there any thing that makes the $10 more prestigious than the $50? Not an Englishman, so I may not know something about this.

mpweiher• 7 years ago

Apparently the binary spells out Alan Turing's birthday!

Someone1234• 7 years ago

Alan Turing is a good choice. There were many good candidates on the shortlist (Paul Dirac, Rosalind Franklin, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, James Clerk Maxwell, etc) that hopefully get their day.

I will say Stephen Hawking absolutely deserves it, one day, but I feel like the notable person should be dead for a certain period before we throw them on currency (certainly longer than a year). Conceptually I like the "50 year rule." Helps mitigate populism or overly politicizing it.

That results in the Queen (or King) being a remark on today, and the Scientist or other note-worthy contributor being a remark on our history (and values?).

balzss• 7 years ago

I totally agree with you. This is sad news for Stephen Hawking though because I'd be surprised if we still had physical cash in 50 years time.

cameronbrown• 7 years ago

I _really_ hope you're wrong.

benj1114• 7 years ago

We'll still have physical cash, it might be as useful as sovereigns and other 'collectible' coins the royal mint produces though. But then when was the last time you saw a £50 note?

gentaro• 7 years ago

Don't worry, i'm sure someone will make a Hawking Coin.

marsRoverDev4• 7 years ago

ESA has named their newest mars rover after Rosalind Franklin, a good start.

liberte822• 7 years ago

Oh man, I totally forgot Stephen Hawking died until you reminded me. :(

fortran772• 7 years ago

Stephen Hawking would not be a good choice. He wasn't a major force in saving a whole nation, and he had hateful, controversial political opinions.

Alan Turing was truly a great man.

slim• 7 years ago

what were his hateful political opinions?

kurtisc• 7 years ago

Winston Churchill is on the £5 and he was and is controversial. Controversial in India, the Liberal party, the Conservative party, the Liberal party.

widowlark2• 7 years ago

I would love to know what hateful opinions Stephen Hawking held?

BuildTheRobots• 7 years ago

he had hateful, controversial political opinions.

Could you point me towards some more info please, I was entirely unaware of this.

arethuza2• 7 years ago

“This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be.”

What a great quote.

golergka• 7 years ago

Aside from the excellent choice of Turing, this is some godawful design, with all the worst Photoshop cliches from the 90s.

suaveybloke• 7 years ago

It's just a rough mock-up, the final design should be much better (at least that's what happened with the redesigns of the £5/£10 notes).

smcl• 7 years ago

Just a shame that this bank note is basically unusable

maffydub3• 7 years ago

Can you elaborate on why they're unusable?

jotm2• 7 years ago

Nobody uses them in day to day life. Many people have never even seen one. Most cash machines only have £20 notes as the highest denomination.

shrikant2• 7 years ago

Lots of shops (at least in my neighbourhood in London) flat out refuse to accept £50 notes.

diggan2• 7 years ago

If it's anything like using the 50 euro bill in Spain, it's hard to use them in everyday transactions as usually places don't have enough change (or want to loose that change) for 50 euros if you order a coffee for example.

Havoc• 7 years ago

Denomination is too big for most daily use

DanBC3• 7 years ago

If you're in Cheltenham during Gold Cup week (a horse race event that attracts large numbers of people) there are many fake notes floating around, so local stores stop accepting notes in the month around race week.

jotm2• 7 years ago

Maybe they'll finally start using it in cash machines outside London once the pound drops haha

jonatron• 7 years ago

They're normal in casinos. Don't know about anywhere else though.

marsRoverDev4• 7 years ago

Because for many people casinos are about money laundering, not gambling.

marsRoverDev4• 7 years ago

The current batch of 50s are practically unusable because they are widely counterfeited and lack sufficient security features. The new one should significantly lower that risk - that having been said, it's likely that they will be hoarded by drug dealers etc so you won't be seeing a huge number of them in circulation.

epanchin3• 7 years ago

I have never had trouble spending a 50. Although Scottish 50s are often refused.

jgrahamc2• 7 years ago

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, came to the Cloudflare London office opening party recently and he told me that it was entirely the Governor's discretion to choose who is on the bank notes. This was the first time the public had been solicited for ideas, and a committee had whittled the suggestions down to a short list.

Ultimately, Carney made this call. Thanks!

chongli2• 7 years ago

Mark Carney is Canadian and was previously the governor of the Bank of Canada. We've been doing this sort of thing with our money for a long time now. Looks like he brought the tradition to England.

hanoz• 7 years ago

If you mean the tradition of choosing historical figures to feature on bank notes, rather than the tradition of boasting about it at office parties, we've been doing the former sort of thing a long time before Mark Carney's arrival. Probably the latter thing too.

Zeebrommer• 7 years ago

The article states that "In 2015, a total of 30,000 people nominated 590 famous visual artists for the £20 note, before JMW Turner was selected with the help of focus groups." so this doesn't appear to be the first time the public is involved.

dreamcompiler• 7 years ago

When I saw the headline my first thought was JGC must have had something to do with this! Thank you for your efforts on behalf of Turing over the years.

jgrahamc2• 7 years ago

Ha. I may have got the ball rolling 10 years ago (https://www.wired.com/2014/11/the-man-who-made-the-uk-say-im...) but I wasn't in any way directly involved in what happened after that.

bufferoverflow• 7 years ago

Good choice of Alan, but what a trainwreck of the design and the typography. Ugly as hell.

jw1224• 7 years ago

Pretty sure this is only a mockup — the note itself won't be out until the end of 2021.

I remember seeing a preview of the redesigned £5/£10 notes a few years ago and thinking exactly the same thing — seeing Trebuchet MS on a bank note was a bit of a surprise, but thankfully the end result looked far better.

robert_foss3• 7 years ago

It is funny how the article doesnt mention him committing suicide as a result of being chemically castrated by the UK authorities for being gay.

dschuetz• 7 years ago

Yes, exactly. Doesn't even feel like an apology.

Luc• 7 years ago

You already knew about it, so obviously there was no need to mention it. Again.

mises2• 7 years ago

I'm not sure it needed to? I don't think they tried to exclude it, and more that "by the way, we castrated this guy decades ago" doesn't naturally come up in the article. Plus, they did actually issue a formal apology.

I would hope they're doing this to honor Turing, not to apologize for what they did to him. Face on a bill is nice, but doesn't make up for ruining some one's life, so it would be a lousy apology any way. So I kind of hope the media more covers what Turing accomplished than the things Engkand did.

mike-cardwell• 7 years ago

The short paragraph which talks about his mistreatment, links to a much longer article regarding his pardon, and his alleged suicide. This seems totally reasonable to me.

brighter2morrow4• 7 years ago

It is funny how the article doesnt mention him committing suicide as a result of being chemically castrated by the UK authorities for being gay.

Yeah I agree, I assume this is actually the main reason he is so well known and celebrated today. Mere obsession with computers would make Godel, Alonso Church, and others with equivalent models of computation just as famous.

edanm4• 7 years ago

Yeah I agree, I assume this is actually the main reason he is so well known and celebrated today. Mere obsession with computers would make Godel, Alonso Church, and others with equivalent models of computation just as famous.

I absolutely disagree.

For one thing, Turing didn't just invent a model of computation - he invented what is seen, in some sense, to be the precursor to the actual, physical computer (the Turing Machine).

But more importantly, in addition to doing that, he actually built one of the first actual computers. And he did that in order to break the German encryption in WW2.

I am a huge fan of Godel's work, don't get me wrong, but Alan Turing was far more important in world history, and indeed in math/science history (though Godel is of course hugely important too).

treerock• 7 years ago

I don't know. I first heard of the 'Turing Test' at school, long before I knew about his conviction. And his work during WWII gives him a bit of a hero status, even for people who aren't interested in computers.

welly• 7 years ago

I'm not sure for overseas, but in the UK he is by far well known for his contribution towards cracking German transmissions and helping towards ending the war.

The Turing Machine is something else he is known for (as an aside for his contributions during WW2) but I suspect if you were to ask the average person, they'd suggestion foremostly he cracked German transmissions not built the precursor to the computer.

Perhaps more recently he will have been known to be gay and had committed suicide, because in recent years there has been a lot more about him in the media.

I've got to confess I didn't know much about his later life and suicide for a long time and only really knew of him in regards to WW2 and his part played in computing history.

wlll4• 7 years ago

TBH if it was me I think I'd prefer it if not every single mention of me in the future brought up what is ultimately a rather personal and unpleasant thing. Yes, it was an appalling thing to have been done to him, but if I were successful I think I'd rather my successes were celebrated standing alone.

robert_foss3• 7 years ago

I think there's value to not sweeping these things under the rug. In the shockingly recent past we've committed atrocious things, and there's nothing stopping us from doing it again apart from us learning from our past.

As for a society honouring it's heroes, it rings a bit hollow when it through persecution killed said heroes. Being honoured when you're dead does you very little good.

mywittyname3• 7 years ago

Understanding his fate allows him to be an icon for disenfranchised minorities as well.

matthewbauer• 7 years ago

Going from convicted criminal to celebrated on bank notes by the SAME government in less than 100 years is pretty notable!

mhh__2• 7 years ago

This is common knowledge at least in the UK (in my experience).

simplicio• 7 years ago

FWIW, after reading Hodges biograpy on Turing, I don't think its anywhere near as clear that his death is due to suicide as is commonly stated, or that if he did commit suicide, that it was due to his (unjust) indecency conviction.

justin66• 7 years ago

There's a sentence in the article that mentions his chemical castration, trial, and posthumous pardon and links to a more detailed article detailing all this and broaching the topic of suicide.

I bet you want an editorial (and I bet you want one that mirrors your own beliefs and is a bit preachy about it). That's not what this article is for.

billpg• 7 years ago

For context, the £50 note is worth around 63 USD.

(Used to be around $80 a few years ago. Thanks Brexit!)

raverbashing• 7 years ago

And even funnier how there's a quote there how the 50 note is being targeted as an elitist/laundry note

It might have been a big amount of money 20/30 yrs ago but today it's a bit weird that's the biggest denomination.

criddell5• 7 years ago

Do you know if the bank sells new notes specifically to collectors? I'd love to buy one of these if I can get one that is in great shape.

travisjungroth5• 7 years ago

In the US, you could just walk into any bank and ask. I’ve done it before with other notes. Bring 50 quid with you if it’s not your bank. If you’re getting it right when it comes out, it will almost certainly be uncirculated. Go at a quieter time (not a Friday or first bank day after the 1st or 15th).

cr0sh2• 7 years ago

I'd love to buy one of these if I can get one that is in great shape.

What you want, IIRC, is known as an "uncirculated proof note" - at least, that's what I know it as when it comes to US currency.

They are fairly easy to get from the US Treasury, I believe - as they will typically sell low-denomination proof sets (with coins too) as "collectibles". Whether other countries do the same or not, I am not sure.

If you go to the Bank of England's website:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/

There's a contact link at the top - I believe they are the organization that releases Britain's currency, so I would contact them to find out how you can obtain such an uncirculated note.

Indeed, I want to do the same, and that's where I plan to start. Hopefully, we can get it for the face value (about $63.00 USD at current exchange rates), plus maybe a tad more for shipping, handling, it being uncirculated, etc. I'm expecting - well, hoping - to not pay more than $100.00 USD for the note.

Seems a bit crazy, but then again, I've paid a lot of real money for a fake money note (it was something shot out as "confetti" into the crowd of a concert, and it was in great condition - I never went to that concert because I didn't know the band then - plus I doubt I would have been in the pit where those notes landed - price and danger (mosh) would have deterred my older self).

arctangent• 7 years ago

For the benefit of some below, the design shown in the news article is only a concept image [1]. The final design will be revealed nearer the time the new note is issued.

[1] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2019/july/50-pound-bank...

tripzilch• 7 years ago

Oh, good! :) because the white glow looks like a really bad photoshop cutout job ...

duiker101• 7 years ago

The more surprising thing is that they are making a new £50 note at all. I haven't seen one in a very long time and many shops don't even accept them any more.

Symbiote8• 7 years ago

That just depends where you live and work.

In a part of London with many tourists, I saw them used by people ahead of me in the queue daily. There are some cash machines somewhere in London that dispense them -- possibly in Canary Wharf, I forget.

Conversely, I don't think I've seen a cash machine with fivers.

https://imgur.com/a/sJu9y (cash machine showing it has £20s and £50s).

philbarr• 7 years ago

You'll generally see cash machines with fivers in the poorer parts of the UK.

iforgotpassword• 7 years ago

That's interesting. In Germany I might get a strange look if I pay for my coffee with a 50€ bill but it's usually accepted unless they actually don't have enough change. It's certainly no problem at a supermarket, even paid with 100€ bill a few times (because there is this stupid ATM near my workplace that doesn't ask which bills I want and just gives me 100 if I chose that amount and I forget almost every time). Judging from other comments here it seems outside London you really have trouble paying with that 50£ bill. I have seen one supermarket had a sign up saying they don't accept 200€ bills so far.

I'm curious about other countries now because I never really gave that a thought. I was surprised though when I was in China for the first time and learned the largest one is 100rmb which was around 10€ at that point. It's now more like 15€ and China is rapidly changing to a completely cashless society anyways but it was really weird back then; since using the ATM included a fee, you would get like 4000 bucks at once (depending on how long you stayed) and run around with 40 bills in your pocket.

kuu• 7 years ago

In Spain is strange to pay with a bill of more than 50€ in regular places, maybe big super markets would accept them, but no in small shops (or I don't see them at least).

physicsguy3• 7 years ago

I find travelling to Germany a nightmare for cash.

In the U.K. it’s almost at the point of being cashless - indeed I ate at a restaurant on Saturday night which didn’t accept cash.

In Germany it’s like going back to the UK in the early 90s in that regard. Charges to withdraw money from ATMs, the newly built canteen at the office of a large experiment doesn’t accept card, but also wouldn’t take a €50, which was also what the ATM gave me!

folli• 7 years ago

The £50 note was described (...) as the "currency of corrupt elites, of crime of all sorts and of tax evasion".

I recently dealt with a 1000 CHF (= £811 = $1018) banknote in Switzerland. It's not very commonly used, but it exists.

sigwinch28• 7 years ago

Although not commonly used, it seems the Swiss do not have such skepticism of high-value notes.

I would routinely pay for things (groceries, electronics, etc.) with 100CHF and 200CHF notes without the cashiers batting an eye, while I used the 1000CHF note once or twice for large purchases.

julianwachholz2• 7 years ago

Down payments with 1000s on big things like cars is very much accepted here.

aunty_helen• 7 years ago

A Swiss friend of mine (who granted is a little old fashioned) said he would use them to pay bills for his business and would often use 10x 1000CHF notes for a monthly bill.

Another interesting point around the money laundering aspects, he was talking with one of the central bankers and it was now considered unpalatable to introduce any bigger sized notes. My friend's point was that when the 1000CHF note was introduced in the early 1900s, adjusting for inflation it was worth a lot lot more.

Grue3• 7 years ago

In Russia banks love giving out 500 euro notes when you exchange rubles to euros, the problem is most places in Europe don't accept 500 euro notes for payment, even for sums that are more than 500 euro (such as paying for hotel stay). From what I heard even most banks won't accept them unless you have an account, so they're totally useless to bring for a euro trip.

apexalpha2• 7 years ago

In NL both €200 and €500 are almost universally rejected.

schnable• 7 years ago

Nice, but a click baity headline for HN...

julianwachholz2• 7 years ago

It's fixed now

DominikPeters• 7 years ago

The table on the mock-up banknote shows a fragment of a Turing Machine, taken from his paper introducing TMs (https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Turing_Paper_1936.pdf#pa...). Unfortunately, the chosen fragment is just used by Turing to establish notation and is otherwise meaningless. I hope in the final version they use better formulas, for example from the construction of the universal machine.

wlll4• 7 years ago

The last time I saw a £50 note was in about 1997. I pay with cash a lot. I think it's fair to say they don't get used all that much.

epanchin3• 7 years ago

Why would you receive a £50 paying in cash?

There’s larger note for which you could be receiving it as change.

travisjungroth5• 7 years ago

If they pay for lots of things in cash, they must also receive lots of cash somehow. Otherwise they’ll be out of cash pretty quick!

wlll4• 7 years ago

If I recall correctly it was when I was a bartender and someone paid using one.

colordrops• 7 years ago

Ironic considering some countries have already transitioned to mostly digital payments.

physicsguy3• 7 years ago

It’s cool, but the circulation for these notes is really low - I only ever used to see £50 notes when working in a shop that sold timber to builders!

jacknews2• 7 years ago

Perhaps shows the state of Britain's economy/relative worth compared to the rest of the world, since I used them (true, only occassionally) late 90s/early 2000's, but they must be worth much much less now, due to inflation, not to mention that referendum thing. It's not because prices are low in Britain aka Treasure-Island, that's for sure!

$100 bills are more than common, for example, and similar (actually quite a bit more) in value.

aembleton• 7 years ago

Where would you even get a £50 note from? I've never seen a cash machine dispense them.

henntipular• 7 years ago

Is it a picture of before or after the government betrayed and mutilated him in a homophobic witch-hunt?

Thanks for helping win that war.. shame about your sexuality tho

_bxg1• 7 years ago

Not only is he an important historical figure, but England owes him a great debt (and reparation). Previously they'd only "pardoned" him; this is a stronger gesture.

sygma• 7 years ago

A bit off-topic: last time I tried to use a 50 GBP note in London I got strange looks and it was refused. Apparently anything beyond a 20 GBP note is seen as "too high". A worrying turn of events…

drcode• 7 years ago

I think this is true in most countries now, in that ATMs are more and more designed to just spit out a single denomination, which raises the statistical likelihood that any larger denomination note could be counterfeit.

kitd• 7 years ago

Wait for a few months after Oct 31st, then it should be fine.

byziden• 7 years ago

Some shops will do extra verification, such as rubbing it against paper to ensure the ink comes off, and use a UV light to see the hidden symbols. Even though it might be legal tender, sadly there's no obligation to accept it. Just as they might refuse Pokemon cards as payment too. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is-legal-...

ptah• 7 years ago

that picture of him is remarkably high-res for a £50 note

sytelus• 7 years ago

Isn’t this unusual for British tradition? If I understood correctly, the bank notes are issued under the authority and guarantee of monarch which is why they carry her picture. This applies to any country which has also accepted her as their queen as well (Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc). It is being said that the queen doesn’t carry passport or banknotes because both are issues under her name. So there is big symbolism there which will be gone?

npad• 7 years ago

The Queen is on the other side of the note.

civicsquid• 7 years ago

It really isn't that unusual. The five pound note for example has Churchill on one side and the Queen on the other.

tobylane2• 7 years ago

It’s said she carries cash. She gives money to the collection plate at Sandringhams church at Christmas.

twic5• 7 years ago

As others have mentioned, it's quite normal to have the queen on the front of the note, and some other historical figure on the back. As far as i can tell, this started in 1970, with a £20 note with William Shakespeare on it:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/withdrawn-banknote...

danharaj3• 7 years ago

Chuang Tzu with his bamboo pole was fishing in the Pu river. The prince of Chu sent two vice-chancellors with a formal document: We hereby appoint you prime minister.

Chuang Tzu held his bamboo pole still.Watching the Pu river, he said:“I am told there is a sacred tortoise offered and canonized three thousand years ago,venerated by the prince, wrapped in silk,in a precious shrine on an altar in the temple.

What do you think? Is it better to give up one’s life and leave a sacred shell as an object of cult in a cloud of incense for three thousand years,or to live as a plain turtle dragging its tail in the mud?”

“For the turtle”, said the vice-chancellor,“better to live and drag its tail in the mud!”

“Go home!”, said Chuang Tzu.“Leave me here to drag my tail in the mud.”

lern_too_spel• 7 years ago

How does this story apply? Turing has no life to live whether he is on the notes or not, and somebody will be put on them.

danharaj3• 7 years ago

It would have been better for Turing if the government left him alone instead of chemically castrating him and driving him to suicide, then venerating him.

hi41• 7 years ago

I think when someone see the new note, they will realize a terrible crime was committed by society based on whom he loved. They will leave that path of unrighteousness and follow the path of peace and understanding. So yes, it is useful.

dannykwells• 7 years ago

Wonderful choice!! Hoping for Rosalind Franklin next!

dwighttk• 7 years ago

They should put "There's no such thing as The Turing Test" somewhere on there.

univalent• 7 years ago

Great recognition!!! Excellent design as well. Well done 'Bank of England'.

anticensor2• 7 years ago

Adolf Hitler could have been a good choice.

panpanna• 7 years ago

People on Reddit wanted him on the £10 notes instead.

Makes sense to have ones and zeros for the father of electric computers...

lamby• 7 years ago

Given the hostile stares of disgust and suspicion that result from trying to pay for anything with a £50 note, the tragic irony that it will now be adorned by the face of a man who suffered homophobic discrimination is not lost on me.

Alan Turing to feature on new £50 note

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