Street cleaners ordered to keep things clean in east London’s public spaces are coming up against those who see Banksy’s subversive graffiti as valuable art that should be protected.

Said one street worker: “We have to clean up the walls. We can’t make a decision as to whether something is art or graffiti. The Government judges us on the number of clean walls we have.”

The Independent reports: “Never mind that art tourists come from all over the world to try to spot the Grim Reaper with the smiley face or some of the other 30 or so Banksy works that have been made inside the borough boundary since he first started working with stencils seven years ago. The council says it will remove the art ‘whenever we find it’. In that case, officers must be the last people in London not to know where it is. Maps available on the internet give exact locations. They also show where the cocaine-snorting policeman or the dinner-jacketed rats with a red carpet to their hole used to be. Banksy has been a victim of the street teams before, you see – but usually by accident.”

In other words, get it while you can.