All right, Gordon, you are now officially the fat boy crying by the swings and I can't bear it any longer. The Guardian has deserted you and all is despair, so here's what you should do. Listen and learn.

There are quite a number of things you can do to retrieve your reputation. The important point behind these suggestions is this: any nicey-nicey innovations (more childcare, longer maternity leave, higher tax credits) will produce no electoral gratitude. People know when you're sucking up to them and mostly they don't like it. They take what you offer and turn back to their own affairs. So the proposals need an edge. And it's important you are caused pain in this process; people will like that.

Spend £10bn or so on your relaunch. It’s small change. It’s 1.5 per cent of public spending; if you can’t find that to invest in your future you shouldn’t be CEO.

1.  Punish the banks. Very many voters want to see fat cats suffer. You can make them keep the roof over the head of people to whom they have missold mortgages? Incidentally, letting a large bank go bust might be very good for nearly everyone (economies like a bit of creative destruction). But more saliently, ordinary people from all across the spectrum want to see the guilty punished.

2. You will want to impose a windfall tax on the oil companies, but don't. Take some pain. For 12 months, reduce the duty on fuel to keep the price of petrol at under £1.10 a litre. Why should the government get rich when the rest of us are feeling so poor?

3. Sponsor Alan Simpson's amendment to the Energy Bill. This pays people who feed energy into the national grid. Also, reduce people's council tax if they meet recycling targets. Ordinary people will be now be rewarded for doing the right thing as much as punished for doing the wrong thing. So make election days a public holiday while you’re about it. A little festivity will alleviate the Scotch misery that surrounds you. 

4. Stop dithering about Iraq. We're there in a very half-hearted way. Withdraw the troops. Put distance between us and the US on this.

5. Have a bonfire of educational directives, allow teachers to teach and heads to manage. But the quid pro quo is that bad teachers should expect forcible re-training and if that fails, the sack. Simplify D1 planning laws to allow "more schools, smaller schools" (that's a slogan, by the way). Have a small school in each town for excluded pupils with specially-trained teachers and twice the per capita allowance for pupils. Oh, and put an extra billion into prison education.

6. Ignore your own whips. Push through a Bill allowing the Commons to vote on the membership of all Commons committees. Pay committee members a premium. Allow committee chairs to force debates. Halve the amount of government legislation going through the House. But insist what is passed is thoroughly scrutinised. Accept some opposition amendments as a matter of principle.

7. Make sure all European legislation is properly debated in the Commons, and have accepted mechanisms by which EU proposals can be rejected. Make sure 15 per cent of such proposals are rejected. Pick some fights you can win.

8. Legalise the growing of heroin in Afghanistan in order to solve the world diamorphine shortage. Use the revenues to tax production and to police the distribution. Suddenly there will be a functioning economy. And because the Taliban hate poppy-growing they will find themselves "on the wrong side of the argument".

9. Announce a Sovereign Wealth Fund, putting £2.5bn a year into it. In a decade it'll be worth £50bn. This fund is sacrosanct because it will eventually be the fund that pays pensions. Too expensive? For goodness sake, man, you're spending £600bn a year! It may be the only real tough long-term decision you'll have ever made.

10. Abolish ID cards. Biometric passports will limit foreigners' access to the NHS and other expensive benefits. Introduce a residency qualification for benefits, especially council housing.

And stop talking about the need to "listen and learn". You're no good at it and nobody believes it's any use.

The other rule is to do this fairly quickly. The opposition will say it’s panic, but if it’s popular with the public credit will come to you not them. I’m afraid you'll probably have to get Alastair Campbell back to spin all this, not least to your colleagues. 

PS: 11) Introduce a “public benefit” factor into the Post Office closure evaluations. Issue reprieves for large numbers of outlets. £200m a year  for two years . . . and allow post offices more commercial freedom.