lawyer David Pannick wrote in The Times to defend Macdonald's appointment and attack the tabloid campaign against him. Macdonald's predecessor also dismissed the relevance of the drugs offence and a report in The Independent also found support for his appointment from within the legal system. As DPP, Macdonald established the Counter Terrorism Division, the Organised Crime Division, the Special Crime Division and the Fraud Prosecution Service. In office, he often took positions which were critical of the government. For example, he opposed ministers' rhetoric around the "War on Terror", preferring to see terrorist attacks in the UK as law enforcement issues. He was prominent in criticising government attempts to extend pre-charge detention to 42 days, arguing that due process protections should not be undermined and that the reform was unnecessary. Near the end of his term, leaders in The Guardian and The Times strongly supported his record in office. In his last month in office he warned against excessive use of surveillance powers being introduced by the government, saying: "We should be careful to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we cannot bear." He was awarded a knighthood in the 2007 New Year Honours. Later career Macdonald retired as DPP on 31 October 2008, returning to private practice at Matrix Chambers and becoming a regular contributor to The Times, where he writes on law, security and politics. He was succeeded in the office by future Labour leader Keir Starmer. In 2009, he was appointed a Visiting Professor of Law at the London School of Economics. In 2010, he became a Deputy High Court Judge and a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford. On 14 December 2009, Macdonald wrote an article in The Times about the Chilcot Inquiry into the 2003 Iraq War. This article was more critical than anything that has been said so far by any of the senior civil servants who worked in Whitehall when Blair was prime minister. It attracted media interest also because Macdonald is a member of Matrix Chambers as is Cherie Blair. Macdonald describes Blair's "sycophancy towards power" and wrote that "since those sorry days we have frequently heard [Blair] repeating the self-regarding mantra that 'hand on heart, I only did what I thought was right'. But this is a narcissist's defence, and self-belief