"Red Ken" Livingstone was playing Winston Churchill the day of the bloody London bombings.  He sounded just the right mix of sadness and defiance to the terrorists

"... even after your cowardly attack, you will see that...people from around the world will arrive in London...to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves." 

Ken Livingstone is fast enough on his feet to denounce terrorists today and enable them tomorrow. It was Red Ken who scapegoated the half—Jewish leader of the Conservative Party in the recent election, in order to appeal to radical Muslims in London. The London Underground, the terrible scene of Thursday's bloodshed, was, during the election,  plastered with posters depicting Conservative leaders as pigs, bringing to mind the Islamist hate slogan: "Jews are the descendants of pigs and monkeys." Red Ken is a piece of work.  It is not Winston Churchill he brings to mind.

Why raise these unpleasant facts even as the bodies are still unburied in London? Because the hard Left in Britain has not waited even twenty—four hours. The London Guardian, surely the snarkiest leftwing rag in the world, is not waiting for families to grieve and the wounds to start healing
.
Yesterday's Guardian set the tone, in a column written by one Tariq Ali:

"...the cause of these bombs is the unstinting support given by New Labour and its prime minister to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "

But it wasn't President Bush who brought the toxic ideology of multiculturalism to Europe. It is Red Ken and his ilk, who routinely demagogue their democratic opponents as racist, even while playing the race card.

If you want to understand the hard Left in Britain, think Dixiecrats in Mississippi before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Think Robert Byrd, the Kleagle of the Klu—Klux Klan who now spends his days demagoguing President Bush on the floor of the US Senate. Think Dick Durbin, who smears American soldiers as Nazis, even as they give their lives to protect his porcine carcass. Not that Mayor Livingstone is anti—Semitic, you understand. Some of his best friends are Jews who hate Israel.

Yesterday's bombers are still unknown, but their enablers on the Left are standing right in front of our eyes. It was Mayor Livingstone who openly praised and defended Islamofascist Sheikh Al Qaradawi as "a man of peace."

The radical Left imposed multiculturalism on Britain, which is of course left—wing political monoculturalism. Leftists in the educational system drilled generations of children to loathe their own political culture as morally inferior to the bloodiest tyrannies in the world. The Left has blocked any sensible British immigration reform, so that it became impossible to deport the most dangerous terrorists in the world.

Radical Muslims soon learned to ask for asylum for political persecution, to guarantee a long, taxpayer—supported vacation in Britain. London became "Londonistan," the biggest European haven for Islamist indoctrination and recruitment. The terrorist enablers are the hard Left and its propaganda organs, notably the hallowed British Broadcasting Corporation. British ratepayers recently paid for the BBC to produce a "documentary" to peddle the bug—eyed notion that the terrorist threat was just a right—wing plot to scare people. That was pure disinformation, just one piece of a daily BBC propaganda stream that nurtures, protects, and rationalizes yesterday's murders.

Here's a prediction. The bombers will turn out to be young British Muslims, born in London and raised by the welfare state. They were indoctrinated and recruited in Islamist centers like Finsbury Park mosque, the center of Islamist radicalism in Britain. They timed yesterday's horrendous attacks to coincide with the start of deportation proceedings against Abu Hamza al—Masri, the "hook—handed cleric" who has preached jihad against Britain for years.  You see, Allah has entitled al—Masri, an Afghani citizen, to remain in Britain to raise jihad against the infidel Christians and Jews. God wills it.

A second prediction is even easier, because we have seen it come true in the US. The British leftwing media, after a few weeks of hearty outrage, will soon revert to form. A year from now the horror will only be a memory, while saturation propaganda from BBC "News" will hammer home the idea that America and Israel are to blame. Terror wars are fought by brave young soldiers, but they are won or lost in the domestic media. The Left cannot afford to stop the flow of propaganda lest people begin to think for themselves.

And yet a third prediction, a sad one. Britain and Europe will not be able to control the tide of Islamic immigration, any more than the US can. That is because the Left has planted its seeds so deeply that no politician can afford to talk sensible reform. There are simple solutions: return terrorist immigrants to their countries. Block radicalized populations. Don't bring murderous thugs into your home. But the West has now been so deeply steeped in suicidal multiculturalism that it can no longer slam the door, even in the face of clear and present danger.

The Islamist attack on 9/11 did not change the Democratic Party in the US, as we witness every single day. The London bombings will not change the British Left. Therefore the most critical question today is whether the British people, who have not lost their common sense, will prevail in the end. They have been scapegoated and intimidated. They have been bought off by subsidized housing and a third—rate "free" health service that could never survive in the open marketplace. Their transportation system is the worst in Western Europe, dominated by union bosses. Their once—admired police force has become Politically Correct and impotent, and their brave armed forces are being cut, cut, cut. Their violent crime rate is now higher than the US, and the great British culture of politeness, decency and tolerance is in steep decline. Their country's very sovereignty is on the verge of surrender to the apparatchiks of the European Union.

Does Britain still have the guts to survive?  We do not know. It is the same question we face at home. The survival of civilized life in the world hangs in the balance. Our soldiers will win on the battlefield at a painful cost. But all their sacrifices will be for naught if we do not win the battle for hearts and minds at home.

James Lewis is a frequent contributor.