That’s why I welcome The Informer’s campaign against it, and why I’m glad Liberal Democrat proposals to raise the Council’s clean-up budget were accepted, with Labour support.

But eradicating graffiti can’t just be done by a council clean-up budget. It needs concerted effort to reverse this scrawl epidemic.

First, we need the "stick" approach - catching the vandals, and punishing them properly.

Catching a graffiti vandal is easier said than done. A dedicated Kingston police team, targeting school truancy and graffiti, is helping. So is new camera evidence: arrests have been made. Yet police cuts under both Major and Blair Governments have hit these efforts.

Moreover, the last Government’s failure to give tough sentences for convicted vandals exacerbated graffiti. With merely a caution, too often offenders were left laughing at the system.

That’s why I backed measures in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, to make punishment fit the crime. With new "reparation orders" Kingston magistrates can soon require vandals to clean up graffiti mess.

Third, we need the "no tolerance" approach – in other words, encouraging the council, public bodies and private firms to remove graffiti quickly, to end the "thrill" factor. Too often graffiti hangs around far too long.

Fourth, we need the "carrot" approach. That means supporting work with youth offenders to channel their energies elsewhere. In too many parts of Kingston there isn’t enough for youngsters to do. That’s never an excuse, but we can’t afford to ignore it either.

To read more about my own campaign against graffiti, go to my website at www.edwarddavey.co.uk, where there’s now a special section on graffiti.

Graffiti won’t be a quick or easy problem to solve, but we must "fight the blight"!