Joseph Chamberlain Amongst the dignitaries present were former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, Bonar Law, Chamberlain's sons Austen and Neville (then Lord Mayor of Birmingham), and other members of the Chamberlain, Hutton and Martineau families. Winston Churchill called Chamberlain "a splendid piebald: first black, then white, or, in political terms, first fiery red, then true blue". This is the conventional view of Chamberlain's politics, that he became gradually more conservative, beginning to the left of the Liberal party and ending to the right of the Conservatives. An alternative view is that he was always a radical in home affairs and an imperialist in
Lord Mayor of Dublin at public events. Apart from a few reserved functions, which are exercised by the City Council as a whole, executive power is exercised by the Chief executive, a Council official appointed by the Public Appointments Service (formerly by the Local Appointments Commission). Except on a handful of occasions where the city government has been suspended for not striking a rate (a level of local tax), Dublin has had a mayor for nearly eight hundred years. The Lord Mayor resides in the eighteenth century Mansion House on Dawson Street. A privilege enjoyed by the Lord Mayor is to receive the first