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 the Jews sent up for "scrutiny" to Westminster, where the justices would report to the king as to the capability of the Jewry to bear further tallage. In the middle of the thirteenth century the number of such archae was reduced to twenty-five. Arrears of tallage were continually applied for, and if not paid the Jew's wife and children were often imprisoned as hostages, or he himself was sent to the Tower and his lands and chattels were distrained. The Exchequer of the Jews was one of the means which enabled the kings to bring pressure upon the lesser baronage, who therefore