Chancellor of the Exchequer his duty to distribute as fairly as he can." The chancellor has considerable control over other departments as it is the Treasury which sets Departmental Expenditure Limits. The amount of power this gives to an individual chancellor depends on his personal forcefulness, his status within his party and his relationship with the prime minister. Gordon Brown, who became chancellor when Labour came into Government in 1997, had a large personal power base in the party. Perhaps as a result, Tony Blair chose to keep him in the same position throughout his ten years as prime minister; making Brown an unusually
Exchequer of the Jews king, in order to expedite the legal proceedings. The court did not survive the expulsion, though cases with references to the debts of the Jews occurred in the year-books up to the reign of Edward II. The deeds entered in the Jewish Exchequer were mainly the chirographs recording and the starrs annulling indebtedness to the Jews. It has been suggested that the notorious Star Chamber received its name from being the depository for the latter class of deeds. The tax-lists for the tallages were made out by the Jewish assistants of the Exchequer, who were acquainted with the financial condition