John Lydon, the one time Sex Pistols singer turned rent-a-quote pontificator, has attacked the Arctic Monkeys claiming that they’re “not a band”.

Warming to his subject, the old punk told Q magazine that the recent winners of the NME’s Best Live Act award are merely “a showbiz construct. A mockery… very much like that awful band Green Day or Avril Lavigne. They don’t advance. They’re stuck in a time warp and not writing from the heart. Once you recognise the four walls of a genre and stick inside them, you are not writing from the heart.”

According to Lydon, Alex Turner “just turns on the computer and types in ‘punk’ and it goes ping. I see no gut-wrenching soul-searching going on there. Just pleasant little ditties. There’s room for that, but I’m seeking more substance.”

Perhaps Johnny Rotten’s just upset that the amazing punk song computer programme wasn’t around when he was relevant.