Karl Marx said if you do not understand history you cannot learn or benefit from the experience.

Two years ago this council administration embarked on a failed scheme to build a school on Posties Park.

This project which was a classic example of putting the cart before the horse demonstrated the futility of taking a decision carving it in stone and then trying to sell it to the public.

The public are not so gullible and will not sit or stand still for this type of dictatorship especially when attempts are made to sugar the pill and call the ensuing sales pitch consultation.

History will record the fact that the public outcry caused the biggest reversal of this administration’s policy, culminating in the best-attended committee meeting ever held in this area.

The proposed folly was roundly rejected by a discerning public and it is now obvious that these councillors have learned absolutely nothing.

They are going to consultation on a single proposal AGAIN.

I argued for some time now that consultation exercises should contain an element of choice people should have alternatives to consider.

At a very well-attended statutory consultation meeting last week this point of view was endorsed by many of those present who were unhappy at being offered Hobson’s Choice which is what a single option boils down to.

If more choice had been offered in 2013/14 regarding a site for OLSP we would perhaps not fallen foul of ESA regulations and £4.5 million of public money would not have been wasted.

Those lessons have obviously not been learned as we proceed one more time with a single-option proposal, the public clamour at this stage is decidedly loaded in favour of an alternative to super school Vale style.

Events of the last week where John McDonnell said he will, as chancellor, support the fiscal policies of the Real tories to wipe out the fiscal deficit, coupled with Corbyn’s about volte face on Trident should convince even the most die-hard supporter of these Red Tories that their time has come and gone.

Their credibility as a party espousing the precepts of socialism is forever tarnished with means testing of pensioners locally and SLABS cry for an end to universal benefit on education, prescriptions and bus passes from the Scottish Government it is time to ‘pit their tea oot’.