After several thinly veiled references from his political opponents in recent weeks about his future plans, Mr Lyon confirmed to us this week that he has been selected to top the Scottish Liberal Democrats' 'party list' for the next European Parliame
nt elections, to be held in June next year.
He replaces Elspeth Attwooll, who is retiring after eight years as the Scottish party's only MEP, having been named at the top of the party's list of candidates for the last two polls.
The voting system used in these European elections means that Mr Lyon, if elected, will be one of six MEPs representing the whole of Scotland in Brussels and Strasbourg.
In a similar way to the 'regional vote' part of the Holyrood elections, each party chooses its own list of candidates, with voters ranking the parties in order of preference, rather than putting an X against the names of individual candidates; the higher a candidate is placed on each party's list, the more likely he or she is to be elected.
Scotland is currently represented by seven MEPs, with two each from the SNP, Labour and the Conservatives serving alongside Mrs Attwooll; however, the country's representation will fall from seven to six at next year's poll, due to the enlargement of the EU last year to take in Romania and Bulgaria.
Some 496 million European voters will elect 736 MEPs at the polls next June, though whipping up European fervour in Scotland may prove tricky - fewer than one in three Scottish voters took part in the last European election in June 2004, a figure lower than in any other part of the UK.
Mr Lyon, a former president and vice-president of the National Farmers' Union of Scotland, represented Argyll and Bute at the Scottish Parliament for eight years, from its establishment in 1999 until his narrow defeat by the SNP's Jim Mather last May.
Though the constituency had been billed by local LibDems as a straight fight between their party and the Conservatives, Mr Mather turned Mr Lyon's majority of almost ten thousand in 2003 into a winning margin of just 815 votes.
The full article contains 400 words and appears in The Buteman newspaper.
