Jack Kessler
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jackkessler.bsky.social
Jack Kessler
@jackkessler.bsky.social
8.4K followers 1.9K following 2.6K posts
I write the newsletter, Lines To Take, bringing you one big story of the day, every day.

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I like human rights and French cuisine.
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jackkessler.bsky.social
Or maybe we’ll grow our way out of…
Ominously, the OBR concluded that no Budget measures would have a "material" effect on long-term growth potential.
November 27, 2025 at 8:44 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Wonderkids, regens, Taribo West on a free, YIMBYism etc
Screenshot: Local council blocks planning permission
November 26, 2025 at 10:13 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
The chief secretary for that 2007 Spending Review?
Andy Burnham
November 21, 2025 at 8:42 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Today's newsletter includes my favourite Barnett formula story, on how govt withheld cash for the 2012 Olympics from the devolved administrations, I suppose on the basis that, while the Games were happening in England, the feel-good factor would be... UK-wide?

✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/barnett-fo...
You don’t really need to know how the Barnett formula works. Most people in Whitehall haven’t the foggiest either. When I was at the Treasury, it was — and this sounds made up but it isn’t — a bloke called Keith who basically operated the entire mechanism on his own. Essentially, if the UK government increases spending per head in England on something that is a devolved competency, such as health, a pre-set percentage increase is applied to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But if it is spent on something UK-wide, such as defence, no Barnett consequentials are due. Of course, it isn’t always that simple. For the 2012 Olympics, UKG spent a lot of money. There were stadiums to be built, transport links to be improved and a massive regeneration effort undertaken in East London. Surely, this would see big cash transfers to the devolved administrations? The Labour government had other ideas. In the 2007 Spending Review, then chief secretary to the Treasury, a certain Andy Burnham, reclassified spending on Olympics regeneration as UK-wide benefit, rather than England only. I suppose on the basis that, while the Games were happening in a specific locale, the feel-good factor would be nationwide? It was referred to the Joint Ministerial Committee and the devolved administrations between them got a one-off payment of just £30m. Ultimately, this was a shameless cost-saving exercise, one that would deny the devolved administrations hundreds of millions of pounds, create a fair amount of bad blood and grist to the SNP’s mill.
November 21, 2025 at 8:36 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
This will help you meet your fiscal rules in the short term how exactly?
Under the proposals, homeowners would be allowed to defer their annual payment until death, at which point the cumulative tax would be paid out of their estate, with interest.
November 20, 2025 at 9:37 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Labour taxing its voters in London before some potentially horrific local elections is... bold.

For those playing Lines To Take bingo, there are no references to fuel duty but somehow two to Stephen Kotkin.
Labour taxes its own voters Turning briefly to the other great male role model in my life, the historian Stephen Kotkin. As the biographer of Joseph Stalin, Kotkin has probably spent more time reading Soviet archives than anyone alive today. His central finding from decades of research? “They were communists.” Seriously. What he meant was that the leading members of the politburo weren’t mere cynics paying lip service to Marxist-Leninist screeds. They really believed in it! So, too, did David Cameron. Albeit in his case, conservatism. Back in 2012, the then-prime minister ruled out a mansion tax, something his Liberal Democrat coalition partners were calling for. He actually came closer than you might think to supporting one, and his chancellor did raise stamp duty rates on more expensive homes. But a mansion tax was a betrayal too far. Cameron really was a Tory. He also knew who his voters were. As part of its “smorgasbord” Budget, the government is expected to institute a mansion tax of its own (energy freezes, mansion taxes, controls on immigration — it’s Ed Miliband’s world, and we’re just living in it). The question is, as ever, who should pay it.
November 20, 2025 at 9:35 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Fun fact. My Dad had one criterion when it came to buying his first home: that it be within walking distance of Arsenal’s Highbury Stadium.

It was the 1970s so he got it for three shillings and a stick of gum.
Google Maps showing the route from Moon Street in Islington to Highbury Stadium (or what's left of it)
November 20, 2025 at 9:29 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
People change their behaviour in response to price signals all the time. That's how sin taxes work.

It's also why a Budget built on narrow, fiddly taxes on the better-off is one heck of a hostage to fortune.

✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/rachel-ree...

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Behavioural responses to tax changes are a fact of life, but they become a far bigger issue if you were, say, a government seeking to raise billions of pounds not by raising broad-based taxes, but through a “smorgasbord” approach. Take pensions. At the Budget last autumn, Rachel Reeves announced that pensions would be subject to inheritance tax from April 2027. In one fell swoop, this transformed retirement pots from amongst the most efficient forms of tax planning, to one of the least. That is because many would-be beneficiaries may soon find themselves paying double tax, with an effective 67% rate for additional rate taxpayers. The Treasury forecasts this change will bring in around £1.5bn a year by 2030. Yet it all rather depends on how people with large pension pots respond. Instead of continuing to plough more and more into their pensions, individuals are likely to modify their behaviour. They could spend the money, funnel it towards specific vehicles with a more favourable tax treatment or transfer it to their beneficiaries via other means, such as lifetime gifting. Behaviour changes, sometimes dramatically, and any government that is attempting to pin its hopes almost entirely on narrow and distortive taxes may find itself coming back for more next year. And if that’s the case, it may not be Reeves who gets to do it.
November 19, 2025 at 9:52 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
"I'd like to talk to you about inherently difficult trade-offs" sadly does not make good short-form video content.
Can you put that in a clip? There are few more important skills in our present world than the ability to perform (without looking like a performance) on short-form media. Politicians who get this are winning, but some have in-built advantages. Because this is a medium that rewards specificity and simplicity, leaving no space for nuance or self-doubt. So —freezing the rent is good, migrants represent an invasion, Jews have too much power and so on. Short-form video is catnip for populists on both extremes. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage with his one million-plus TikTok followers has as many as all other MPs combined. Second is Zarah Sultana, co-founder of Your Party. Other early exponents of this media include Germany’s far-right Alternative for Deutschland, Romanian far-right presidential candidate Călin Georgescu and newly elected New York City Mayor, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. It is not impossible for more moderate parties and politicians to catch up. Charisma is not a fully incorporated subsidiary of the far-left and right. But tradeoffs have rarely been an attractive concept and do not sit easily in this 45-second moment. (Self-parody klaxon: there was a great discussion on this subject recently on one of my favourite podcasts, Mixed Signals by Semafor.)
November 18, 2025 at 1:12 PM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Unfortunately, it is often political entrepreneurs on either extreme who seem to understand this best.
Can you put that in a clip? There are few more important skills in our present world than the ability to perform (without looking like a performance) on short-form media. Politicians who get this are winning, but some have in-built advantages. Because this is a medium that rewards specificity and simplicity, leaving no space for nuance or self-doubt. So —freezing the rent is good, migrants represent an invasion, Jews have too much power and so on. Short-form video is catnip for populists on both extremes. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage with his one million-plus TikTok followers has as many as all other MPs combined. Second is Zarah Sultana, co-founder of Your Party. Other early exponents of this media include Germany’s far-right Alternative for Deutschland, Romanian far-right presidential candidate Călin Georgescu and newly elected New York City Mayor, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. It is not impossible for more moderate parties and politicians to catch up. Charisma is not a fully incorporated subsidiary of the far-left and right. But tradeoffs have rarely been an attractive concept and do not sit easily in this 45-second moment. (Self-parody klaxon: there was a great discussion on this subject recently on one of my favourite podcasts, Mixed Signals by Semafor.)
November 18, 2025 at 10:08 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
A "hard sell".
MPs had been expected to vote this year on options for restoring the estate. These include a “full decant” i.e. everyone up sticks to a nearby building such as the QEII Centre, a “partial decant” or the “stay put” option, with a permanent programme of repairs that could last — no exaggeration — decades. This is only surprising if you’re new to the process. All the way back in 2016, a Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster concluded that the Palace “faces an impending crisis which we cannot responsibly ignore” and that a major programme of works is now “urgent”. For those keeping track, we are now a few weeks away from 2026. Of course, repairing an ancient maze of buildings in this state doesn’t come cheap. Nor is the cost likely to be universally popular. The Clerk of the House of Commons described restoration of the Palace as a “hard sell” to the public. Estimates from 2022 were that the cost would range from £7bn to £13bn if the Palace decanted, lasting between 19 to 28 years, though these have since risen. Yet costs would be even higher if MPs and peers refused to leave, as much as £22bn and taking up to 76 years (!). This would make for a challenging enough public relations exercise if MPs were held in high regard and the Treasury flush with cash. My understanding is that neither condition currently applies. Naturally, a decision delayed is a decision made. In this case, one that costs money in the short and long-term, all while raising the chances of a catastrophic Notre Dame-esque event.
November 17, 2025 at 1:11 PM
jackkessler.bsky.social
A partial decant, you say? To the QEII Centre!
Decanting a bottle of red wine (that is the joke)
November 17, 2025 at 9:13 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
The Clerk of the House of Commons described restoration of the Palace as a “hard sell” to the public. So we're just going to... wait for it to burn to the ground again?
JMW Turner painting for parliament on fire
November 17, 2025 at 9:10 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
It's Islington so no complaints about the (£3.5m!) asking price, but that doesn't explain why the agents are marketing this property with a single AI-generated photo, including what I think is a fake car brand driving on the wrong side of the road? www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1...
November 15, 2025 at 1:40 PM
jackkessler.bsky.social
How it started.
“Do you know any single men, Jack?” “Lots!” My friend shot a look in my direction with the studied scepticism of a woman in her mid-thirties. “Oh, you mean straight men,” I clarified. “No, not really.” I’d never set any two friends up, though I had seen the 1996 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow (who my year nine English teacher, a wonderfully acerbic, impeccably dressed and encouragingly camp man referred to as “the woman with the exceptionally long neck”). So I knew that being an upper-class matchmaker wasn’t all it was cracked up to be — even if you got to live in Highbury. But a few months after that initial conversation, a man became available. He had broken up with his girlfriend and I figured enough time had elapsed to make an introduction potentially viable. In Sex and the City parlance, his light was on. Editor’s Note: In a 2000 episode of the show, Miranda Hobbes (sorry, I know, you’re more of a Charlotte) proclaimed that men are like cabs:
November 13, 2025 at 1:18 PM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Accept you live in a world in which pork belly is classified as a ‘side’.
November 13, 2025 at 11:48 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Every table was named after Sex and the City characters because I am exactly that basic. My personal favourite was 'The Irish Doorman' but this is the one on my camera roll.
Wedding table named 'Bunny MacDougal'
November 13, 2025 at 10:25 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Not only did I set them up, but when it initially fizzled out, they reconnected ON MY WEDDING DAY.

(I sat them at the same table but on opposite ends.)
On the one hand, I expect a lifetime supply of gratitude from them for making the whole endeavour possible. I mean, not only did I set them up in the first place but, having allowed things to fizzle out, it took me getting married (which I hope to do only once) to ultimately make it stick. On the other hand, what if they get divorced? What if they have a child? What if that child becomes an evil dictator? Or worse, a wildly successful entrepreneur — and I failed to negotiate a 3% cut of future global profits?
November 13, 2025 at 10:23 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Origin story.
“Do you know any single men, Jack?” “Lots!” My friend shot a look in my direction with the studied scepticism of a woman in her mid-thirties. “Oh, you mean straight men,” I clarified. “No, not really.” I’d never set any two friends up, though I had seen the 1996 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow (who my year nine English teacher, a wonderfully acerbic, impeccably dressed and encouragingly camp man referred to as “the woman with the exceptionally long neck”). So I knew that being an upper-class matchmaker wasn’t all it was cracked up to be — even if you got to live in Highbury. But a few months after that initial conversation, a man became available. He had broken up with his girlfriend and I figured enough time had elapsed to make an introduction potentially viable. In Sex and the City parlance, his light was on.
November 13, 2025 at 10:13 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Today's newsletter was brought to you by John Major's still record 14 million votes and majority of 21 which withered away before the '97 election was even called.
John Major with a nice smile on his face
November 12, 2025 at 10:10 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
This started off life as a question: would you rather govern with no money or no majority?

But on reflection, it was a stupid one. Not just because you don’t get to choose, but also because so many UK governments have enjoyed neither.

✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/keir-starm...

My newsletter, out now.
Conventional wisdom dictates that Theresa May made a historic misjudgement in calling the 2017 general election. Clearly, the result itself — exchanging a small majority for a minority — was a political disaster for the Conservatives and a personal humiliation for the prime minister. But May had good reason to go to the polls when she did. First, as later events would demonstrate, she was correct in identifying the need for as large a majority as possible in order to get her Brexit legislation through parliament. And second, more immediately, she was badly hamstrung by her predecessor’s promises on taxation. In the March 2017 Budget, Philip Hammond announced plans to raise national insurance rates for the self-employed. Within a week, he had been forced into a U-turn. The reason was simple: the 2015 Conservative manifesto had pledged not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance. Sound familiar? With a majority of just 12, May had no choice but to ditch the policy. Saddled with a manifesto not of her own making, the prime minister came to the conclusion that she required a mandate of her own. The mistake, therefore, was not calling the election, but in running one of the worst campaigns in recorded history.
November 12, 2025 at 9:58 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
But why was he flying from Dublin to Paris *via Heathrow* was he on a points run?
November 11, 2025 at 1:42 PM
jackkessler.bsky.social
It got me thinking about places that are obvious tourist traps / designed to look Instagram chic. And one in particular that I avoided for years for this reason but turned out to be... incredible?
Cafe in a narrow alleyway, walls painted in slightly garish, Insta-chic colours
November 11, 2025 at 9:28 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
Corner shops: the anti-Angus Steakhouses. They reward loyalty, foster real relationships and — most important of all — never, ever judge.

✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/angus-stea...

My newsletter, out now.
One of the longest relationships of my life was with a local corner shop. Located mere yards from my front door, it stocked everything a twenty-something with no intention of cooking could possibly need, all within a Narnia-eque back section that seemed to stretch into infinity, with every conceivable brand of cereal and flavour of energy drink. The owner, easily the hardest-working man in Haggerston, never judged me or my choices, whether I was wearing a suit and tie or badly crumpled pyjamas. He had long ago mastered the ability to work a till and bag up items without diverting his eyes from the television showing Turkish football highlights. Best of all, I benefited from an unofficial loyalty scheme — he didn’t charge me the advertised 50p to pay by card. Consequently, I would shop there even if the local Tesco was marginally cheaper, its range wider and fruit fresher. This was a business optimising for the lifetime value of our relationship, and I was only too pleased to reciprocate.
November 11, 2025 at 9:19 AM
jackkessler.bsky.social
If only they'd been warned. ifs.org.uk/sites/defaul...
November 10, 2025 at 9:18 AM