FEW will look back on 2021 with fondness. It was a horror of a year. Covid impacted our lives in ways both big and small but, unlike in 2020, we couldn’t rely on the sense of solidarity that was in abundance the year previously.

I suspect most are glad to see the back of it but also worried about what this year has in store for us.

And none more so than Boris Johnson. The tail end of his 2021 was the most dicey time of his premiership. He was beset by scandal and personal failure. He haemorrhaged authority and support. The joker became the butt of the joke.

He starts this new year in a position that no prime minister would ever want to be in.

For Boris Johnson, the phrase “new year, new me” has never had such high stakes.

His restless backbenchers (who make up a not insignificant number of the parliamentary Tory Party) have told him he has to change. There have been final warnings aplenty. Both in public and in private, many have made it clear that the Prime Minister has run out of second chances.

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There are two obvious problems with this threat. Firstly, Boris Johnson is not going to change in any meaningful way. He could brush his hair, employ a new speech writer and try to give his image more polish – but, fundamentally, the man underneath will remain the same.

He will still be lazy, reactive and quick to blame others for his mistakes. He will be the same sleekit operator who so successfully climbed the greasy pole to power. He will be just as untrustworthy as he has always been and few would find a rebrand at this late stage in any way convincing.

The second problem with backbenchers warning Boris Johnson that he needs to change is that these pockets of discontent are so disparate that what he is being ordered to change into remains unclear.

The old guard moderates want to see him grow up and to stop treating Parliament with contempt. Some of the hard-Brexit fanatics have now morphed into anti-restrictions activists. They want him to declare the pandemic over and to refuse to re-introduce even the most moderate of restrictions.

Added to that group are a sizeable number of MPs from all wings of the party (remember that huge rebellion on new Covid measures in December?) who are of the same view. The new intake – mostly Red Wall MPs – want him to stop breaking the promises he made to their northern constituents, get the cheque book out and start safeguarding their wafer-thin majorities ahead of the next election.

So, as Johnson starts 2022, he’ll be receiving a lot of advice. Most of it will be contradictory and he’ll find none of it easy to listen to with an open mind.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll get a better idea about what approach Johnson is going to take as he fights to save his job.

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A Deltapoll survey for the Mail on Sunday yesterday showed exactly how precarious his position is. The poll, of the 57 constituencies the Tories gained from Labour in the last General Election, has Johnson’s party trailing 16 points behind the official opposition. If these results were to be replicated in a General Election the Tories would lose more than 100 seats.

As Professor John Curtice always says, polls are a snapshot, not a prediction – but what a grim picture for the beleaguered Prime Minister to receive a few days into a new year.

And there is more trouble to come. With Omicron running rampage across England, Johnson is going to have to take the decisions he delayed over Christmas.

If he appeases his restriction-sceptic backbenchers and doesn’t bring in any new measures, hospitals could become overwhelmed and public services could take a battering from widespread staff absences.

If he does act to stop the spread, he knows he’ll face mutiny on the backbenches and perhaps a few more no-confidence letters to the chairman of the 1922 Committee.

Over the last few weeks, allies of Johnson have been trying to kill the perception that the Prime Minister is on his way out. They say we shouldn’t write him off just yet because time and time again, he has confounded expectations and shown his detractors that he has what it takes to win.

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But what happens when Boris Johnson doesn’t look like a winner anymore? When poll after poll show that he is going to be a problem for the Conservative Party at the next election, not an asset?

There’s no real love or loyalty to Johnson within the parliamentary Conservative Party. And even if there was, the Tories are famously brutal when it comes to getting rid of leaders.

The decline might have been slow for Johnson but the end, when it comes, will be swift.

Whether that end is near will depend largely on what he does in these first few weeks of a new year