 Banks became well known on radio in the 1960s and 1970s for his strongly conservative viewpoint, including a strident defence of apartheid in South Africa, and the monarchy.These views were often played out on air in debate with the radical journalist Claudia Wright or the broadcaster Ormsby Wilkins, who called him "a sanctimonious old hypocrite".Furthermore, despite his moral conservatism and appeal to the traditional Anglo middle class, his own personal relationships were subject to press speculation.