TONY BLAIR’S phone has been ringing red hot with Sir Keir Starmer seeking his advice, the present Labour leader revealed today.

Sir Keir confessed that he talked to his predecessor “a lot” and found the conversations “really helpful” as he hopes to move into 10 Downing Street.

Reinforcing fears that a Starmer government will be a New Labour rerun of inequality and war, Sir Keir told Channel Five TV: “I talk to Tony a lot about the period just before 1997 because, obviously, I’m very interested in talking to people who have won elections and taken a party from opposition into government.

“It’s been not so much about specific policies, but about the pace, the preparedness of getting an opposition ready for government if we are privileged enough to be voted in to serve.”

The Labour leader’s dependence on advice from past panjandrums is growing. 

Sinister image-making Svengali Lord Peter Mandelson recently instructed Sir Keir to lose weight.