Economists everywhere should be celebrating the fact that Adam Smith is going to grace the back of the new £20 note – the first time a Scot has ever appeared on a Bank of England note. They should be, but I suspect they won't be. Here's the note:

What to say? For one thing, Smith himself could surely have been portrayed in a more flattering light: his receding chin and bulging eye do nothing for the reputation of economists. And next to him, a schematic drawing of a pin factory, inside what looks to be something like an atom? And then these words:

The division of labour in pin manufacturing: (and the great increase in the quantity of work that results)

Never mind the grammar of a colon followed by a parenthetical. The fact is that the division of labour in pin manufacturing might be important in the works of Adam Smith, but it has no currency with the users of today's banknotes. A weak showing by the Bank of England: They could have done much better.