Chancellor of the Exchequer to parliament. This includes alcohol, which is otherwise banned under parliamentary rules. Previous chancellors have opted for whisky (Kenneth Clarke), gin and tonic (Geoffrey Howe), brandy and water (Benjamin Disraeli and John Major), spritzer (Nigel Lawson) and sherry and beaten egg (William Gladstone). The recent chancellors, George Osborne, Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown, opted for water. In fact Darling drank what was named "Standard Water" in reference to, and support of, the London "Evening Standard" newspaper's campaign to have plain tap water available in restaurants at no charge to customers. The chancellor has a robe of office, similar to that
Exchequer of Pleas was held in York, London and Northampton at various times. By the late 12th century it had taken to sitting in a fixed location (the one body of government in England to do so), and by the 1170s it was possible to distinguish the Exchequer's work from that of the other parts of the "curia regis", although the king of the time considered the Exchequer to simply be an element of the "curia"; indeed, it was referred to as the "Curia Regis ad Scaccarium", or King's Court at Exchequer. The word "Exchequer" derives from the chequered cloth laid on a