Albert Einstein is often misattributed as saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

If whoever said these words were alive today, they would probably have been misquoted as saying the definition of insanity is whatever goes on behind closed doors at Perth and Kinross Council (PKC).

This is a local authority hellbent on repeating the same mistakes and getting the same terrible results.

I’m talking about financial scandal, reputational ruin and a pissed off public.

The 1-5 High Street debacle, so excellently exposed by my colleague Morag Lindsay, is a prime example of this council’s ability to do the wrong thing at almost every turn.

Here is a hotel that is not really a hotel, approved for a company going bust, then re-approved to the same people under a different name, all at an eventual cost of more than £4 million to the public purse.

We’ll get into the minutiae of this madness in a second, but first lets take a look at the backdrop against which this is taking place.

The ongoing list of PKC debacles

This is a council who earlier this year was hauled over the coals by the Scottish Information Commissioner for having no records of a £128k-a-year director leaving her role in mysterious........

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