Dear Keir: who can you trust if not Tony Blair?

Hullo Britain. Let me begin by wishing you a solemn Remembrance Sunday. I love mournful occasions, when cliches are welcome and I get to show off my stiff upper lip. I may struggle to excite or inspire, but I can do sombre with the best of them.

Naturally, I’m determined to avoid any hint of the unpatriotic. I’ve ordered ministers to wear poppies at all times, and not just in public. I know what you’re thinking: won’t they need to change clothes, bathe, etc? Well, to be safe, I’m encouraging every Labour MP to get a poppy tattooed over their heart.

But enough of honouring the dead – let’s give some advice to the living!

Dear Keir, I’m a hot mess who makes bad choices. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t responsible for my own love life. How can I pull myself together?

Eulalie, Stockport

Hi Eulalie, sorry to hear you’re such a hot mess. You know what? Putting someone in charge of your decision-making might be a good idea. I’m a big fan of delegating, especially to my chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. Morgan decides my political positions, my comms strategy, and how angry I am about migrants on any given day. This allows me to focus on more important things, such as wearing a suit.

Some have suggested my arrangement with Morgan is similar to the one Boris Johnson had with Dominic Cummings. Nonsense – that was a case of a vacuous, amoral politician so devoid of ideas that he placed his future in the hands of a Durham Svengali. And Morgan’s not from Durham, he’s Irish. Plus, BoJo was dependent on Dom. I could kick my McSweeney habit any time.

So yes, you might want to find a shadowy figure to run your Hinge profile. Alternatively, you could flip a coin to make all your decisions. If I did that, I’d probably be in better political shape.

Dear Keir, I’m a young person who worries he’ll never find a job, own a home or start a family. What hope can I have for the future?

Mason, Denby Dale

Dear Mason, I want to reply not as an advice columnist, but as your prime minister. I know that young people are anxious about the jobs market and the cost of living, not to mention technological change, global instability and climate breakdown. Fortunately, I have the answer to all that: Digital ID. The Tony Blair Institute has been pushing this for years, and who can you trust if not Tony Blair?

Digital ID will make applying for a mortgage – something we do most days – marginally easier. It will also stop migrants working here illegally, because the bosses who hire them always check ID. Think how convenient it will be once all your data eggs are in the same basket. And that data definitely won’t get hacked or sold to tech firms like Oracle (whose founder happens to have given the TBI hundreds of millions of pounds).

I hope this puts your mind – and those of your cohort – to rest, and that you’ll all vote for me at the next election. By the way, on the job front, have you considered becoming a toolmaker? Not only is it a great profession – it also grants your future son the right to bring it up constantly.

Right, that’s me done. Before I go, I want to acknowledge the resounding victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York city’s mayoral election. In many ways, Zohran and I are polar opposites: he’s young, charismatic, a Muslim and a socialist. Nonetheless, I would offer the mayor-elect some advice. Having strong principles and a bold agenda may make you popular. It may win you an absolute majority of the vote. It may even lead to a successful term in office. But it’s not grownup politics.

If you want to be taken seriously, use the Starmer Method: antagonise your supporters; pander to your opponents; underpromise and underdeliver; when on camera, act like your pants are made of steel wool.

Remember, when it comes to voters it’s about quality, not quantity. I’d rather have a net favourability rating of -51 than spend my time appealing to students and hippies. Take that, Polanski!