A great result

And they are not alone. Tenants in both Waverley and Skelmersdale have made the same decision this week.

More power to their elbows. These decisions are not easy, given the enormous pressures faced by council tenants to take the short-term easy option of privatisation.

In the case of Edinburgh, the executive waved the big, fat bribe of writing off all of Edinburgh's housing debt of £300 million and investment of a further £700 million in the housing stock, should the tenants vote the way that it wanted.

Somebody clearly wants the local authority divested of its housing responsibilities very badly indeed.

But the bribe failed. The council must now set about looking at the proper conduct of council housing in the city.

That does not involve the council sitting back on its collective backside and bemoaning the loss of those bribes. It means making the case that the local authority is every bit as entitled to that write-off and that investment by the executive as were a load of privateers and it means fighting to see that it delivers them.

What it most definitely does not mean is Edinburgh going down the same route as Sefton Council on Merseyside, whose disgraceful manipulation and reballot when faced with a similar result to Edinburgh's must go down on record as one of the most shameful incidences of electoral abuse in the history of local government.

Sefton, it may be remembered, simply made wild allegations of electoral fraud, which were never officially reported or substantiated, held a new ballot and pumped pots of its electorate's money into getting the result that councillors desired.

It even sacked union officials who, it claimed, had intimidated their colleagues at a demonstration against the transfer. But this council tactic is not exclusive to Sefton

Tower Hamlets council staff are still fighting against the outrageous dismissal of press officer Eileen Short for the apparent offence of leading a campaign against the privatisation of housing stock.

What Edinburgh council could do is to accept the ballot with a good grace and accept also that it represents a loud and clear judgement by the electorate that council house privatisation and all the bullying and bribery that goes with it is unacceptable.

What the Scottish Executive could do is to ensure that the disgraceful discrimination against council tenants who want to remain council tenants is ended and the relevant councils are supplied with a level playing field with the housing associations and the rest of the rag-bag of privateers.

But what the council and the executive will do, given the pressure exerted on them by new Labour from its Westminster ivory tower - and would anyone like to bet that among its denizens there are precious few council tenants - will be up to the support that the trade union and progressive movement will give to campaigns to defend council housing. We must hope that it will be sufficient.