In a story that smacks of the same absurdity as the Brass Eye episode about ‘cake’ (for those unaware of ‘cake’ click here to read more), The Sun newspaper is reporting that anti-terror police have confiscated ’sugar’ from the houses of those arrested in the terror raids last week.

Under the headline, “Terror plot cops find ‘bomb part’ “, The Sun reports that:

COPS searching the homes of 11 terror suspects have seized bags of sugar — a common ingredient in home-made bombs.

Sugar can be mixed with chemicals to create an explosive for use in bombs and grenades.

Scientists were last night analysing it to determine if it was a secret bomb ingredient.

However, the article fails to explain how sugar that is intended for use in any potential bomb might be different from that which is not intended for use in explosives. And of course, how you can tell whether the everyday household product is merely for use in tea, coffee etc (including cakes but not ‘cake’) or something more insidious such as a home-made incendiary device for instance.

It is a good job that the same anti-terror police had not raided the homes of suspected Irish ‘dissidents’ in the same week as they may have discovered sugar being covertly hidden in a whole variety of suspicious looking Easter eggs…! And let’s not forget that the IRA had once planned a ‘sugar bomb‘ hoax attack on London.

‘Spin, spin [and] sugar‘ most definitely.

This work by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Based on a work at www.chris-allen.co.uk.