One of the great state occasions on the constitutional calendar passed off without a hitch this morning - hardly surprising, given the amount of practice we have had. We refer of course to the swearing in of the new lord chancellor following a procession up Carey Street led by the tipstaff of the Royal Courts of Justice. 

As usual, the new boy was met on the steps of the court by a wigged and robed lord chief justice and master of the rolls. Lord Burnett of Maldon deftly choreographed the photocall - he has had a bit of practice in that department, as one wag observed. 

The swearing in of the new lord chancellor, attorney general and solicitor general also offered the senior judiciary an opportunity to dust off the history books. 

Michael Ellis KC took the oath for his second stint as attorney general, having filled in for his predecessor Suella Braverman when she was on maternity leave last year.

The new AG also has the distinction of serving as solicitor general twice, the second time for just six days in September 2021 – a tenure so short he did not even have time for a ceremony.

But that was not even the shortest stretch as SG, the lord chief justice told him: Sir John Jervis held the post for just three days in 1846 before being promoted to attorney general.

With the government’s current travails and the revolving-door nature of recent legal appointments, that record may come under threat – but not by Michael Tomlinson, who is already into his fourth week as solicitor general.

Lord Burnett also noted that Tomlinson has ‘a distinction which marks you apart from other law officers’, having once played a minor counties cricket match for Herefordshire against Dorset.

‘There are many here who would be impressed by that,’ Burnett said, ‘but less so when they learn that somehow you neither bowled nor batted in the course of the match.’ The LCJ was too polite to use the cricketing acronym ‘TFC’ to describe Tomlinson’s performance: ‘Thanks for coming.’

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