rdinarily, a prime minister with a big working majority does not have to worry much about backbenchers. Tell that, though, to the ghost of Margaret Thatcher, whose MPs ousted her in 1990 when she had a majority of almost 100. And tell it today to Boris Johnson, who, even with a majority of 80, finds his back increasingly against the wall. The idea that Johnson is at any risk of being ousted by a party he led to election victory nine months ago ought to be absurd. Yet a string of U-turns, some hugely consequential, speak of a prime minister who is out of his depth. Hard Tory faces behind Johnson during prime minister’s questions this week suggest that the old enthusiasm, never overwhelming among MPs in any case, may be waning. The polls, meanwhile, imply the national mood is shifting too. In more conventional times, these would merely be bumps in the road. But Covid-19 and the economic lockdown mean that the old rules do not necessarily apply. What is more, this is a very different kind of Conservative government from its predecessors. It presides over an unsettled party, too. As parliamentary politics resumed this week after a bruising summer for the government, the chemistry between the two shows signs of real volatility. To make sense of the backbench dissent that marked the return to Westminster, it is important to grasp some things that make 2020 different. The first is that this is overwhelmingly a Tory government in Johnson’s image. It is configured to suit him, his prejudices and his style. It is held together by Johnson’s personality and authority, much of it exercised through Dominic Cummings. Both men are proof positive, if anyone ever doubted it, that individuals matter in politics. The second is that Johnson’s leadership conceals a party that remains deeply divided on many issues. His own idiosyncratic politics combine the Brexit nationalism of the right with the economic interventionism of the left. But he is a one-off. There are not many ideological Johnsonites. Scratch the surface of the Tory party, and significant unresolved differences over the economy, social policy and culture soon become apparent. This does not mean the threat level for Johnson is necessarily critical. But such a moment may not be far off. As a rule, the thing that makes MPs most worried is if they think they will not be re-elected. Less than nine months into this parliament, anxiety about defeat is not yet pressing. Nevertheless, the combination of U-turns, poor performance and bad polls is unsettling. A week ago, Opinium had Labour neck-and-neck for the first time since July 2019. Replicated in an election it would mean curtains for many Tory MPs. Things were made more unstable this week by kite-flying about new post-Covid-19 taxation in the autumn budget. This is an issue for which the party is unprepared. It unnerves the Thatcherites in the cabinet and on the backbenches – embodied by the backbench chair, Graham Brady – who have an ideological revulsion towards higher taxes. The ConservativeHome website this week found Tory members’ support for Johnson’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic had collapsed in six months, from 92% in March to 48% now. This slump in confidence is reflected in increasing expressions of discontent. Some MPs have gone on the record. As one anonymous MP told this newspaper, they “spoke for a lot of us”. Anger against the proposed bonfire of planning laws is feeding the mood too. Johnson himself admitted this week that things are likely to get tougher. It would still be a leap of interpretation to go from there to imagining a serious challenge to Johnson. Yet Tory MPs know two things about the prime minister. The first is that he and Cummings do not take them seriously. The other is that only they can sack him. The MPs are nowhere near trying to exercise that nuclear option: they know what they owe Johnson for the 2019 election triumph. Yet the frustration is real and growing. It is made worse when a leader is performing badly, as Johnson is, on both the policymaking and parliamentary fronts. Some complaints would go away if Johnson dumped Cummings. Much of the vexation is also directed at the cabinet. ConservativeHome’s Paul Goodman had fun this week pointing out that there are plenty of “better and more experienced” cabinet candidates waiting on the backbenches. Some of Goodman’s suggestions may make you cringe – John Redwood, anyone? But his larger point – that there are qualified and able alternatives to Gavin Williamson, Priti Patel and the rest – is obvious, especially to ever-hopeful backbenchers. It would be a mistake to sell shares in Johnson too soon. He is floundering, but the Conservative party as presently constituted would struggle to agree on what should come next and who would be any better. Johnson is not yet a liability. The deeper issue is that there is currently no alternative post-Johnson Conservative project around which the party could easily cohere. Brexit has ripped the guts out of the liberal modernising centrism of David Cameron. The Thatcherites still think only of lower taxes and spending cuts, which offer nothing to the insecurities of Covid-19 Britain. The doctrinaire Europhobes think only of Brexit. Johnson is a diminished and struggling leader. But he is also just about the only thing that holds the Conservatives together. The party has proved it has a capacity for reinvention before, and should never be underestimated. But if Labour’s return to electoral credibility proves durable, and if the economy worsens in the autumn, forcing divisive choices on a fractious party, all that could change surprisingly quickly. As Thatcher discovered.