POLICE raids on suspected terrorists have uncovered a potentially lethal stockpile of bullshit, it emerged last night.
According to security sources, police raids in Manchester, Liverpool and Clitheroe have so far yielded eight packets of crisps, some beard shampoo and a foreign looking hat.
A senior police source said: "Put the crisps in the hat, add some shampoo, give it a good shake and what have you got? Unimaginable carnage, that's what you've got.
"They were definitely planning to blow themselves up in the middle of the Arndale Centre, or the Trafford Centre, or the railway station, or St Ann's Square, or any one of the 200 pubs and clubs in central Manchester, or the airport, or in the middle of the M6. We're absolutely sure about that."
Sources said the raids had been brought forward while claiming the planned attacks were almost certainly due to be carried out today or tomorrow.
A source added: "We like to leave things to the last possible moment. Makes it a bit more like Spooks. If only we could discover a nuclear bomb that had a digital timer on it with just 10 seconds left. I'd love that."
Meanwhile a loophole which allows thousands of angry, bearded Pakistanis to enter Britain without background checks was doing its job very nicely indeed, the immigration minister told sources last night.
A source close to Phil Woolas said: "We let in just enough of them to keep you nice and scared, wait until they take a photograph of something and then arrest them at gunpoint."
Prime minister Gordon Brown last night claimed personal responsibility for both the surveillance operation and the arrests while a source stood behind him shaking his head and waving his hands.