Obsolete

Well I'm not going to defend the idiotic BBC hacks who conflated three of Barot's plans into one, but the risible smoke detector scheme was only a single plot. He also had plans to blow up gas cannisters in limousines (remind anyone of Glasgow and London recently?) and (pre 9/11) discussed piloting planes and petrol tankers into large buildings. Sure, he was nowhere near actually carrying them out, but he was taken seriously enough to present the plans to Al Qaeda in the first place.

As for the news blackout: This would have been informally requested by the police because they don't want to give any other grandiose nutcases the ridiculous idea they could free Barot from the hospital.

Mudassar Arani (another self-important figure) is well known for ignoring the conventions of the British legal system. The fact she broke a blackout doesn't surprise me at all. She was personally criticised for her techniques by the judge in the 21/7 terror trial. But no doubt it's all a conspiracy designed to oppress us.

You don't need to lecture me about Barot's other plans. The complete failure of the recent "attacks" involving gas canisters ought to show just how much of a fantasist this guy was. As for him presenting his plans to al-Qaida, as Jason Burke discusses in his book on al-Qaida, this has long been the method used by would-be bombers to get funding for their plans. That Barot had done so and seemingly not got any might well be an additional note on what they also thought of him.

As for the blackout, a quick search of Google will show how it was being discussed long before it was meant to be lifted. I'm not claiming it was some sort of "conspiracy", as you quite wonderfully put it, but that the article ought to have also mentioned Arani's going public with the news.