I think the big difference of course is that Sir Alan had several weeks of being impressed by Lee’s performance before the lie came to light – in the real world things would be a bit different.

When it came out I was annoyed and assumed that Lee, the clear winner for me from the start, was now out of the running and had completely blown things. It came as a real shock. I thought he got off lightly, but was glad for him.

But other folk, who are normally far more judgmental, seem to think it’s really no issue at all. As one person put it to me “He can clearly do the job. Everyone liked him and the world’s too obsessed with people having the right bit of paper and using it to stop people making progress”.

For me this wasn’t an argument about having the right bit of paper but one about being truthful. However I think I’d still have given the winning place to Lee, although I think I’d have given him more of a hard time than he got over his lying.