(600) LORD ADVOCATE RESIGNS WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT
The Lord Advocate, Lord Boyd of Duncansby QC, announced his resignation with virtually immediate effect, from midnight on 4 October 2006. He said that as the longest-serving Lord Advocate in the last 100 years (6½ years in office) the time had come to move on, to pursue opportunities in the private sector and become active in the House of Lords to which he was appointed earlier this year. Those in search of more sinister motivations pointed to current uncertainties over such matters as the still unfinished Justice 1 Committee Scottish Parliament inquiry on the Shirley McKie fingerprints case and the Scottish Criminal Records Office, and the possibly pending re-opening of the Lockerbie case. It seemed unlikely, however, that the causa causans was another critical outburst from Lord McCluskey, published in The Scotsman on 3 October, and entitled Honey