Perhaps he should abandon politics and team up with Tony Robinson on Channel 4′s Time Team? They’re always “not-quite-finding-the-big-thing-we-think-is-here” but Martin has a knack.

Then again, large, previously undiscovered, national heritage sites are always either hidden in plain view or turn up in the last place you look. Only last weekend I found an original gold bound manuscript of the Annals of the Four Masters stuck down between the cushions on the sofa along with a furry malteser, the remote for the DVD player and some loose change.

I was also glad to see that at the first whiff of a crisis brewing Dick “Zapp Brannigan” Roche leapt to the defence of our heritage. That man deserves a cape, boots and a theme song.

Because, as Simon says, it would be highly unlikely for this government to have kept the discovery of an impediment to the road building under wraps until after the scheduled photocall that was required to tap electoral headlines. That would be so very unlike this government.