Almost to a man, they had argued in favour of saving their local Wisewood secondary school, which is destined to be merged with poorer-performing neighbouring school, Myers Grove.

But even when the ruling Lib Dem group on Sheffield City Council came up with an imaginative funding option, which could have ensured the city's new school building programme would remain on track, Mr Knight stubbornly refused to budge.

Indeed, his immediate rejection of the suggestion leads to the opinion that he had made up his mind even before yesterday's meeting with local councillors had started.

At least the public can take (albeit, cold) comfort from the fact that Labour's interpretation of consultation has not changed from the days when parents of the doomed school were invited to public meetings to be led to believe that their opinions over the future of the two schools actually mattered - when in fact there was not a scrap of hope that their views would make a difference.

The decision had been taken for a merge and the so-called consultation process was a sham.

What is even more irritating is that it took a local election and change of local government before officials could be directed to do what they had been asked to do some months ago.

During their time in opposition of a hung council, the Lib Dems had won a vote calling for a rethink of the merger proposal. Officers were instructed to find an alternative solution.

Instead, they came back with a response from regional education supremos which amounted to little more than blackmail: go ahead with the proposal or you will miss out on millions for other school rebuild schemes in the city. Now we see that an alternative was available - and one which certainly deserved some consideration rather than an outright dismissal.

But that's all we have come to expect from our knee-jerk Government, where one minister contradicts another.

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