First Lord of the Treasury that office; in this case, the Second Lord of the Treasury usually served as Chancellor. As of 1841, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has always been Second Lord of the Treasury when he was not also Prime Minister. By convention, the other Lords Commissioners of the Treasury are also Government Whips in the House of Commons. 10 Downing Street is the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury, and not of the Prime Minister. Chequers, a country house in Buckinghamshire, is the official country residence of the Prime Minister, used as a weekend and holiday home, although the
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom decision-making. Former ministers such as Clare Short and Chris Smith have criticised the lack of decision-making power in Cabinet. When she resigned, Short denounced "the centralisation of power into the hands of the Prime Minister and an increasingly small number of advisers". Graham Allen (a Government Whip during Tony Blair's first government) made the case in "The Last Prime Minister: Being Honest About the UK Presidency" (2003) that in fact the office of prime minister has presidential powers. However, the presidentialisation thesis has been extensively criticised as well. Keith Dowding, for example, argues that British Prime Ministers are already more