Gavin’s Gaily Gigest

Alan West yesterday, hurriedly throwing his toys out of the pram following the government’s defeat in the Lords on 42 days detention, on the current terrorism threat facing the UK:

Some of the measures that we have put into place in the past 15 months have made us safer, but that does not mean that we are safe. The threat is huge. It dipped slightly and is now rising again within the context of ’severe’.

There are large complex plots. We unravelled one, which caused damage to al-Qaeda and the plots faded slightly. However, another great plot is building up again, which we are monitoring. …

We have done all the things that we need to do, but the threat is building – the complex plots are building.”

Yup, complex terrorism plots organised by genuises like this:

A Muslim convert has pleaded guilty to launching a failed suicide bomb attack on an Exeter restaurant.

Nicky Reilly, 22, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to attacking the Giraffe restaurant on 22 May. Reilly, who appeared under the name Mohammad Rashid Saeed-Alim, researched how to make bombs using caustic soda, paraffin and nails on the internet.

But one of the bombs exploded in his hands when he attempted to assemble it in the restaurant’s toilet cubicle.

Two things:

1. When assembling bombs, take the necessary precautions.
2. If you’re planning to strike at the very heart of British life, Exeter, all the way down there in the south-west, isn’t the best place to do it.