Dear Geordin Hill-Lewis,

Congratulations on your stunning ascendancy to the very top of the DA. Is this something you aspired to or were you pushed? No matter. The main thing is that you are there, snapping at the heels of the ANC. In the political food chain, you are a mesopredator. President Ramaphosa and his inner circle are the apex predators. It will take a lot of hard work, courage and guile to dislodge these great black sharks from the ecosystem of power. You need to be an orca, my friend. Black on top, white underneath, less whale, more killer. Grab ’em by the liver until they beg for mercy.

I see you’re married? Well done. Nobody trusts a man who is single. My friend Ted wants to know if your wife is white. He said you can tell a lot about a man from the colour of his wife. I said he’s a racist dog and threatened to take my horsewhip to him. Then we zoomed in on some photos of Carla but we still couldn’t tell and eventually she was just a blur of pixels so we gave up and went drinking instead.

Personally, I am pleased that you have taken over from John Steenkamp. Never liked the man. Reminded me of someone in a Durban bar who once put me in a chokehold because I spilled his drink or slept with his girlfriend or something. The details are sketchy.

You remind me of the inflatable arm-flailing tube man sometimes seen outside used car lots. This isn’t a criticism. I once bought new tyres from a business that had one of these atrocities on the pavement and they worked just fine.

But you’re a sturdy loose-limbed guy with a goofy grin and people might think you’re just a big ol’ softy and try to take advantage of you. Then again, you were born in Plettenberg Bay and must know a couple of moves. I always thought Plett was designed exclusively as a holiday town. The notion of someone actually growing up there is hard to imagine. It’s a good thing your parents moved to Cape Town’s white-bread northern suburbs before you took up surfing and sucking on bongs.

Life behind the Boerewors Curtain must’ve been an education on its own. I’m sure Edgemead High School gave you a solid grounding in casual racism and a firm grasp of rugby’s offside rule. Not quite enough to launch your political career, but you did succeed in cutting your liberal teeth at UCT. Without you, the Democratic Alliance Student Organisation might not be what it is today. Frankly, I don’t know or even care what it is today. Being neither children nor adults, but some aberration betwixt the two, students somehow manage to possess the worst characteristics of both.

With your sparkly young star firmly in the ascendancy, you became the youngest MP in democratic SA. You were 24 years old when you walked into parliament for the first time. At that age, I was off my face in the mosh pit at the Brixton Academy slam dancing to The Clash.

You’ve got your work cut out for you, bruv. The DA struggled to reach 22% of the national vote in last year’s general election. With many of your party’s former fans in self-imposed exile in England and Australia, you need to find a way to get more darkies on board. Try everything. Bribery, threats, free beer. Do whatever it takes.

Smart move to remain as Cape Town’s mayor rather than take a cushy job in Ramaphosa’s cabinet of curiosities. Even Edgemead is a step up from Pretoria. I’m in your city right now and having a great time. Well, apart from a potential stabbing event in a bottle store on the wrong side of the M5. Reminder to self: don’t elbow gangsters aside even if they are blocking the doorway.

What are you going to do with Madame Zille now that she’s out of a job? She’s claiming to have saved the DA from “woke, left, ethno-populism”. Helen of Troyeville – the face that launched a thousand tweets. I predict she will end her career in chains, whether they be mayoral or restraints in a psych ward.

Anyway, mate, you’re going to need plenty of luck and pluck as you pick your way through the minefields that lie between you and the presidency in 2029.