and I Can Show You Why You Will Fail.

Tim quoted Tony Blair below, so here's Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, in a poetic and powerful statement. "Just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder". Yes. But the broader theme is the crucial one: The bastards will lose.

"I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a
terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at
Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class
Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old.
It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any
considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.

That isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith - it is just an
indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They
seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other. I said
yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, that the city of London is the
greatest in the world, because everybody lives side by side in harmony.
Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together
in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been
bereaved and that is why I’m proud to be the mayor of that city.

Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to
take life.

I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to
take others - that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may
fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you
why you will fail.

In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and
look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see
that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive
in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their
potential.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they
come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to
be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They
don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that
flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony
with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.”

Last night in Oxford, there was dancing and pizza and music and beer as friends from around the world, from New Zealand to Macedonia, celebrated the end of their finals. Such frivolity will continue tonight. Bastards.

UPDATE: Fox News has video of Livingstone's speech, all the more remarkable because it is pretty well extemporaneous. Blair's reaction is there as well. Leadership worthy of a great people.