Dear Keir*

Hullo Britain. It’s been a grim week in UK politics.

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Still, the Tory conference offered unintended fun. While the event passed most people by, Robert Jenrick achieved cut-through with comments about going to Birmingham and not seeing a white face. Fortunately for the shadow justice secretary, faces at conference were overwhelmingly white. If only there had been more of them! Tory attendance made our smallest fringe event look like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

I should lay off the Conservative party. It’s not fair to kick someone when they're down. Or, in this case, dead and partially decomposed.

Dear Keir,

I manage a cafe, and my Gen Z employee always wears badges for various causes. It’s not that I have a problem with gays or the environment, but I don’t want to alienate customers who do. Am I within my rights to object?

Alec, Penrith

Alec, I feel your pain. I can’t stand people bringing politics into the workplace, whether it’s a cafe or the House of Commons. I believe in free speech, of course, but you can have too much of a good thing. For example, pensioners taking the mick on Gaza. My home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, put it nicely: “Just because you have a freedom doesn’t mean to say that you have to use it at every moment of every day.”