The legacy of these machinations is a ministry that has the smallest budget of any spending department, is shunned by the best civil servants and lacks sense, shape or purpose. Much of the key work on regulation and distribution of funding is carried out by quangos. Meanwhile tourism and media would be more logically placed under the business brief, equalities is a fudged mess, and many in heritage would prefer to sit alongside planning at Communities and Local Government.

The DCMS bungled the rollout of superfast broadband, which was found to be running some £200m over budget and two years late. This would be better bundled alongside digital inclusion and cyber-security at the Cabinet Office in a beefed-up digital department, given the crucial importance of this sector to Britain's future. It was noticeable, incidentally, the prime minister himself rather than Miller took the lead on the issue of access to online pornography – while the handling of press regulation has been botched from start to finish.

There are too many government departments – their existence, titles and responsibilities often the result of political horse-trading rather than the needs of the nation. Few ministries demonstrate this better than the shrivelled, muddled and sometimes-misfiring department of culture, media, sport and many other things from gambling to wartime commemorations.

Yet there is no chance of either main party delivering the coup de grace, given the furious outcry and accusations of philistinism that would ensue. So instead we limp on with the current compromise, another messy cosmetic solution to the real needs of the nation.