James Moore: A new note – in more ways than one

Outlook Forget the gold standard. Britain's currency is about to go plastic. No, the Bank of England is not suggesting linking sterling to the price of plastic, if there were such a thing.

This is supposed to be about the notes and what they are made of. Plastic looks set to replace paper as the material of choice, meaning that Winston Churchill, the new face of the fiver, won't turn into the shabby, mucky, crumpled thing his predecessor Elizabeth Fry has so often become. He'll look fantastic in plastic, as will Jane Austen when she takes over the tenner.

As cash continues to decline in importance, you do rather wonder why they're bothering, but currency traders will probably see something in the "plastic standard". After all, given the amount of money printing, sorry quantitative easing, that's been going on, it does seem rather appropriate to replace pound sterling with pound plastic.