I see Banksy is back in the news. An anti-capitalist who sells his art for colossal sums and gleefully works for big corporations, he was a natural target for me in Not In My Name: A Compendium Of Modern Hypocrisy. Here’s a passage from my chapter on him:

In times gone by, hypocrites could be seen at art galleries, staring at the exhibits, wondering how long they should spend looking at each piece of work and pretending they knew what the hell any of it meant. Then, during the 1990s, they got excited about Damien Hirst and his formaldehyde-bound animals.

Sickening stuff but not half as nauseating the artistic idol of the modern hypocrite: Banksy.

Publications like The Guardian and The Big Issue treat Banksy with enormous reverence. The modern hypocrite believes that by championing Banksy they have moved out of the art gallery and out onto the street. However, it must be easy to get all wet between the legs about graffiti when you don’t live anywhere near the streets that are destroyed by vandalism. Few Banksy fans live in such communities and therefore few of them are forced to pay increased council tax to have it cleaned up.

When he travelled to the Middle East to paint some images on the West Bank security wall Banksy earned their lifelong admiration. The construction of the security wall has coincided with a 90 per cent reduction in suicide bombings in Israel. Yes, it has caused hardships for some Palestinian people but just for a moment imagine all those Israeli people who were not killed as a result of it being built.

Then imagine Banksy deciding that what the world needed now was him to fly to the Middle East and do some silly drawings on it.

Describing the wall as “the ultimate activity holiday destination for graffiti writers” he displayed a level of self-indulgence that was extraordinary even by the standards of the Not In My Name brigade. However, any hopes that his nine drawings might make him a hero for the Palestinian people were dashed when a Palestinian approached him and the following exchange took place:

Palestinian: “You’ve made the wall look beautiful.”

Banksy: “Oh, thanks!”

Palestinian: “We don’t want the wall to look beautiful. We hate this wall. Go home.”

Oh dear, how embarrassing for him!

Me? I don’t know much about art but I know what I don’t like: Banksy.