WHAT on earth is David Cameron doing? I tend to ask myself that question pretty much daily, but the PM’s decision to give Barack Obama a painting by graffiti ‘artist’ Ben Eine as one of the official gifts to mark his first trip to Washington smacks of Dave trying to be a bit too hip for his own good.

Eine, apparently, is one of Samantha Cameron’s favourite painters. How deluded she must be. For Eine, it appears, recently sprayed the entire alphabet on shop shutters in a London street. Add to that the fact that Eine is not averse to daubing his work on the sides of trains or railway sidings. Indeed, his own website shows 13 such examples of his work under the banner of ‘vandalism’ – he said it, not me – where it’s patently clear his efforts involved criminal damage on a mammoth scale.

In doing so the pictures on his site evidence that he will have had to trespass on railway property close to overhead line equipment carrying 25,000 volts. Just to give a sense of scale, that’s 100 times greater than the electricity running through the average house. If you come within nine feet of the overhead equipment the electricity can arc and kill you.

Not that I’m too bothered, frankly, about those who choose to dice with death to pursue their ‘art’. More fool them. How is it, though, that some of the families and friends of those who wind up dead because they’ve been pratting about on railway tracks start ranting on about how unsafe the railway is (quite) as though it’s the industry’s fault rather than looking at the culpability of their loved ones?

No, of far more concern is the multi-million pound problem that railway graffiti causes – believed to be some £5 million a year at the last count. And that doesn’t account for lost revenue and delays. Trains apparently cost upwards of £1,000 a day to lease. If you have to take a train out of service because the likes of Eine have scribbled all over it that’s £1,000 you’ve lost straight away, and then you’ve got to clean it and possibly respray it. Think about how much a car respray costs – a couple of grand or more for a quality job? – and then times it by 40.

And that’s just the trains. Clearing graffiti off railway infrastructure involves taking possession of the line, meaning no trains can run with the knock-on impact of inconveniencing passengers. It’s apparently an even bigger problem on London Underground, where £10 million and 70,000 man hours a year are spent trying to eradicate this phantom menace.

Phantom, because while the results are there for all to see the crimes are committed at times and in locations where graffiti offenders prefer not to be seen. It’s all part of the thrill of the chase, apparently, and daubing on the side of trains provides the uber-adrenaline rush because the results are seen by that many more people as the trains ride the rails.

While some might consider graffiti to be ‘art’, with those undertaking it seeing the railway as a large expanse of blank canvas, well-documented research shows that what it actually does is create an ambience of fear and insecurity among those using the rail network. Where graffiti vandalism is rife then even subconsciously it suggests the authorities are either uncaring or unable to prevent crime in the first place, so homing in on people’s perception of their own personal security and safety.

Which is why railway businesses spend millions trying to get rid of the stuff, why British Transport Police has a dedicated graffiti unit and why the courts are now getting tough on those of the same ilk as Ben Eine. In April this year, for example, a man from Kent was jailed for 18 months after being found guilty of 12 charges of attacking and damaging trains over a three-year period causing £50,000 of damage.

There have been several other cases of offenders being jailed for similar offences as the rail industry ramps up its fight against graffiti vandals, so it begs the question why Ben Eine has got away with it. Presumably police have not been able to evidence his activities although given that he proudly displays examples of his railway ‘art’ on his website it is a dead giveaway.

Which, for me, makes David Cameron’s present to Obama a crass indicator of how out of touch he is with problems in the country he was so desperate to lead for his own self-aggrandisement. Big Society? Try talking about that to someone who won’t use the railway because they feel intimidated by the presence of graffiti.