The Police raid two houses. In one they discover "a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs", in the other the find "rocket launchers, chemicals, and a nuclear or biological suit".

It’s a terrorist plot, right? It’ll be all over the national news in a shot?

Wrong on both counts, apparently… because the two men caught with this nifty little haul of equipment aren’t Muslims, they’re BNP supporters, one of whom stood for election in Colne only last May.

Ex-BNP man held in ‘bomb’ swoop

A FORMER British National Party member has been arrested after police found bomb-making equipment at his house.

Police sealed off the home of Robert Cottage in Talbot Street, Colne, after storming the address and discovering chemical components that could be used to make explosives.

The 49-year-old has been arrested under the Explosives Act on suspicion of possessing chemicals that may be capable of making an explosion.

However Superintendent Neil Smith moved to reassure residents and stressed: "It is not a bomb making factory" and added that it was not related to terrorism.

Officers have been at the address since last Thursday and have been conducting door to door inquiries. Forensic officers have seized his car for examination.

Supt Smith added: "We are making inquiries in relation to what we have found at his address and to establish what offences he may have committed.

"He’s not a terrorist and it’s not a bomb factory but we are interested in what we have seized from his house. It will take expert advice to establish exactly what he has got.

"He was arrested under the Explosives Act on suspicion of possessing chemical substances that aren’t in themselves an offence to possess but if combined may be capable of making an explosion."

Cottage stood for the BNP in the May elections in the Vivary Bride ward of Colne.

However it is understood his membership had lapsed. - The Citizen, Burnley. October 2nd 2006

Yes, that’s right. That report is a four days old and it took the Police less than 24 hours to reach the conclusion that "He’s [Cottage] not a terrorist and it’s not a bomb factory" - and then the plot thickens…

Rocket launcher ‘found at dentist’s house’

A RETIRED Grange dentist is accused of being part of a bomb plot after a record number of explosives were seized in a Lancashire town.

David Bolais Jackson, 62, of Trent Road, Nelson, was arrested on Friday in the Lancaster area after leaving his Grange practice for the last time.

Jackson was charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose.

However, it is unclear who or what the intended target might have been.

Police found rocket launchers, chemicals, British National Party literature and a nuclear or biological suit at his home.

The find came shortly after they had recovered 22 chemical components from the house of his alleged accomplice, Robert Cottage, a former BNP election candidate, who lives in Colne.

The haul is thought to be the largest ever found at a house in this country. - North West Evening Mail, October 6th 2006

So now we’ve got explosives, chemicals, literature from and extremist political organisation and an NBC suit.

And then we have…

Chemicals Find: Two In Court

TWO Pendle men have appeared before Pennine magistrates accused of having "a master plan" after what is believed to be a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs was found in Colne.

Robert Cottage (49), of Talbot Street, Colne, and David Bolus Jackson (62), of Trent Road, Nelson, made separate appearances before the court charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose. The offences are under the Explosive Substances Act 1883.

Both men were remanded in custody to appear at Burnley Crown Court on October 23rd. Cottage was arrested at his home on Thursday, while retired dentist Jackson was arrested in the Lancaster area on Friday, the same day as he left a dental practice in Grange-over-Sands.

The 22 chemical components recovered by police are believed to be the largest haul ever found at a house in this country.

Cottage is an ex-BNP member who stood as a candidate in the Pendle Council elections in May.

Mrs Christiana Buchanan, who appeared for the prosecution in Jackson’s case, alleged the pair had "some kind of masterplan".

She said a search of Jackson’s home had uncovered rocket launchers, chemicals, BNP literature and a nuclear biological suit.

Police raided Cottage’s Talbot Street home on Thursday of last week. The house was taped off while forensics officers searched the premises. Neighbours were told to stay in their homes for their own safety. Mr Cottage’s car was also taken away for examination.

Officers also made a thorough examination of Jackson’s Trent Road home and, again, officers were on duty outside the house. Forensics officers examined the property. - Pendle Today, 6th October 2006

So now the prosecutor claims that not only did Cottage and Jackson have the chemicals to make explosives, extremist literature, rocket launchers and an NBC suit but they also had a ‘masterplan’…

…To do what exactly?

Okay, don’t try to answer that, it’ll be sub-judice at the moment.

However, its worth noting that, thus far, the two of them have only been charged under the Explosive Substances Act of 1883, and not under any of the much more recent anti-terror legislation, despite the claim that they had a masterplan, which implies a definite conspiracy.

It’s also worth noting that the CPS’s own guidance on explosives offences refers to use of the Terrorism Act 2000 as follows…

Where possession of an explosive substance is linked to a reasonable suspicion that it is for a purpose connected with an act of terrorism, an overlap occurs between Section 57 and other offences.

Note that the requirement within the 1883 Act that an offender must knowingly have an explosive substance in his possession is absent from the 2000 Act.

There is no limit to the type of article to which Section 57 can apply. Where an offender is found in possession of not only an explosive substance but also other items which fall outside the definition of an explosive substance, and the circumstances give rise to the statutory suspicion under Section 57 a charge under this section is likely to be the appropriate charge with regard to all the articles.

Would you not think that, maybe, possession of rocket launchers and an NBC suit might just fall into this definition of ‘other items’?

And would I be wrong to suggest that had the names of the two men in this case have been Iqbal Ahmed and Rafiq Hussein and not Robert Cottage and David Jackson, then the response of both the police and the media to this case would have been very different….

…or am I wrong in thinking that it it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…?

Move coverage…

Blood & Treasure - large bomb apparently found, not many informed
Picked Politics - Ex-BNP member caught with “record haul” of explosive chemicals
Lenin’s Tomb - the bomb factory you won’t hear about

Unpeak has the answer - via Jarndyce at The Sharpener…

Last night;s Question Time was one of those occasions where you really do end up feeling a bit sorry for David Dimbleby when you some of at the distinctly low-rent panellists he was landed with; Ian Hislop was moderately entertaining and Shirley Williams provided the kind of welcome gravitas one sees all too rarely these days and then usually only from politicians old enough to have been MP back in the days when we had real politics, but as for the rest…

Well, as it was Tory conference week, they got two panellist all to themselves, so surely they could fielded someone a bit more interesting than Cameron’s policy gimp, Oliver Letwin.

For fuck’s sake even ‘Two Brains’ Willetts would have been more interesting than Letwin who, for reasons known only to far-flung frontiers of genetic engineering, manages to combine the classic looks of an archetypal loathsome Tory Boy - slightly bloated and faintly patrician but giving always the sense having been a bit of porker at public school and therefore the kind of kid whose best position on sports field was as a corner flag but who excelled at giving light relief to the head prefect whenever he was left out of his box in the corner of the dorm - with all the personality of wet sponge.

The only thing you get from watch Letwin is the inescapable feeling that his middle names must be Jeremy Hilary Boob - he is the political Nowhere Man, making his nowhere policies for noboby.

And then there was Sandra Howard…

…

…what the fuck was that all about?

She doesn’t so much have an opinion as a faintly camp simper, so much so you begin to wonder whether you’ve swtiched over to one of Kid’s TV channels by mistake and have inadvertantly ended up watching re-runs of Rainbow instead - in fact the only way I could sure that I was still watching Question Time was to keep checking Dimbleby out of the corner of me eye to reassure myself that he was still wearing a suit and not a pair of ill-fitting dungarees.

But that’s enough talk of effeminate pink hippos for now, because just at the point where you think you’ve hit rock bottom and it couldn’t get any worse, it’s then that you realise that Hazel Blears is there as well…

It’s pretty much common knowledge that throughout the Blair years, a fair few Labour ministers have been sent off on media relations-type course with the aim of impriving their performance in front of the cameras -as I recall, Prescott famously declined such an opportunity when offered to him, which is just as well as ‘Prescott’ and ‘Media Relations Training’ are terms which go together like… well like ‘turd’ and ‘Brasso’.

So, as a Labour Party member I think it only fair I ask two questions at this point in proceedings.

Has Hazel Blears ever been on such a course? and,

If she has, can we have our money back?

Look Hazel, for fucks sake try and relax a little bit. I know you’ve probably been told that sitting up straight and maintaining a good posture makes you look a little bit more authoritative and a bit less like an emaciated chipmunk but that only really works if you don’t end up looking like rigor mortis set in twenty years ago and hasn’t shifted since…

…And please, please, sit fucking still, or at least try not to do all that wobbling and rocking from side to side.

It’s not just off-putting,  it’s like watching a meerkat trying to doing a fucking impression of Stevie Wonder.

And do try to remember that when members of the audience start harping on ‘uncontrolled immigration’ and pitching in comments that have come straight off the BNP’s website that the correct response for Labour Party member is not to start wittering about how the population in constitutency is changing rapidly and how we need to consider the ‘concerns’ that people like them are raising about immigration, but ‘Fuck off you xenophobic twat’ or words to that effect - it really is an embarrasment to see a Labour minister making a piss-poor attempt to empathise with a couple of racist dickheads in the hope that we might score a couple of votes after seeing Ian Hislop lay into them for what they are - a pair of ignorant arseholes.

Look, I know that QT has its fair share of ropey panelists - I particularly remember an appearance by Patti Boulaye in which every answer she gave began either with ‘As a Christian…’ or ‘As the Bible say…’, which prompted me to email the producers to ask them get Dimbleby to reminder her that she was sat next to Nick  ‘fatty’ Soames and not fucking Harry Seacombe - but last night’s show really was in the shitter even by those piss-poor standards.

Almighty Allah is the most gracious and mercyfull Almighty Allah has discribed his beloved prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H.) in the Holly Quran as saying . . .

(We have merely sent you as a mercy for everybody in the universe.) Ramadan is the month of forgiveness, compassion and mercy.

Muslims are expected to folow these teachings and forgive each other.

Therefore, I humbly beg the deceaseds familly in the name of almighty Allah and his beloved prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) to come forward, show mercy and forgive me.

Moreover, I appeal to the president of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf to exercise his powers and comute my sentence.

I understand the President is visiting Britian.

He will be meeting with priminister Tony Blair and leaders of muslim community in Britian.

I appeal to priminister Tony Blair to raise my case most emphatically with President Musharaf and press for my immediate release.

I hope President Musharaf will be obliged to do this and set me free.

I would like to thank all the Human-rights organizations, supporters, especially the people of Leeds who are working hard and campaining for my release.

I request all to keep-up their support and prayers. Thank you.

From The Times and unsigned, although it should be obvious that the author is Mirza-Tahir Hussain.

More at Bloggerheads and Pickled Politics.