British sort-of-terrorist Saajid Badat pled guilty at the Old Bailey today. He’s apparently part of the same comedically ineffective conspiracy that brought us gibbering madman Richard Reid.

Despite the guilty plea, the prosecution accepts the defence’s claim that Mr Badat never seriously intended to do any shoe-bombing – rather, he agreed to the plot to impress assorted foreign extremists, and then left the bomb in his attic for years instead of going ahead on the planned date. This should significantly reduce his sentence.

Only a terribly cynical person could conclude that the timing and outcome of this court appearance were in any way related to certain other things currently in the news. And it would be *unthinkable* to suggest that Mr Badat might have been offered a favourable plea bargain to ensure that Blair and Clarke’s plans to destroy our liberty got knocked off the front pages by a Dangerous Evil Terrorist.