Boris Johnson on borrowed time despite exits of Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain: Bernard Ingham

She failed by four votes to get the super majority required to keep her job and two days later resigned. Boris Johnson should take heed: November can be lethal.

Why, Yorkshire’s very own Guy Fawkes nearly blew up Parliament in November.

Johnson is not safe even having got rid of his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, a one-man disaster area in government.

He has a lot to do in a very short time to refit his Government in a businesslike way.

His party is up in arms about a lot of things – and not just unseemly fratching among unelected officials that saw off Cummings.

So what can Johnson learn from Thatcher’s demise?

Not a lot on the face of it.

Mrs Thatcher had been in office for well over 11 years, was undefeated in the country and Commons and, after a terrible struggle, had rescued the economy and raised the standing of Britain in the world.

Johnson has been in No 10 for a mere 15 months and, after his initial Brexit success, has known nothing but trouble, including a near-death experience with Covid-19.

But there are a few constants starting with the Parliamentary Tory Party’s fear of losing the next election.

A combination of high inflation and interest rates, thanks to Nigel Lawson’s irresponsible custody of the economy, and the poll tax did for Mrs Thatcher.

How many Tory MPs now confidently claim that they will win again in 2024?

Not many, I would guess, especially among the so-called Red Wall MPs of the North who gave Johnson his thumping majority now that the unelectable Jeremy Corbyn has been replaced by Sir Keir Starmer.

It is true that Starmer could so easily be prevented from snatching the crown by the unions, the hard Left and Momentum who will not go away.

But Johnson is almost certainly living on borrowed time.

Another constant is the economy where Johnson will have to cope with at least as much unemployment and far worse public finances than Thatcher.

Here her attention to detail, housewifely economics and iron will maintained with remarkable consistency carried her through.

Johnson appears to be devoid on these attributes.

He is the original political busker who throws money around like water,

Even now he talks grandly about 50,000 offshore wind turbines and a tunnel from Stranraer to Larne while HS2 is eating up billions we don’t have when this year’s budget deficit is likely to be £400bn.

You can almost hear the chickens coming home to roost.

Mrs Thatcher decided to resign because her Cabinet deserted her.

She had always accepted that, as a constitutionalist, she could only go as far as her Cabinet would allow.

It is, however, far from clear whether up to now the present Cabinet has been running the country with Dominic Cummings and his cabal around.

Short of a return to real Cabinet government it is almost inevitable that sooner or later even Ministerial worms will turn.

Initially, Mrs Thatcher did not have much time for the media and was often a reluctant performer but she saw the necessity of regularly explaining her policies in “blockbuster” interviews with the likes of Robin Day, Alastair Burnet, Brian Walden and Jimmy Young.

Contrast that with today’s dearth of major speeches in or out of Parliament or in-depth interviews when there is so much to explain.

As for consistency, arguably Mrs Thatcher’s major policy asset, look at the U-turning and incoherence of the last nine months over Covid.

And yet No 10 is lifting with official communicators.

There is no substitute for a Prime Minister (and the Cabinet) selling a Government policy, always assuming the policy is worth a row of beans.

The uncomfortable moral of this depressing story is that Johnson has got himself into a terrible mess and has few of the attributes needed in a Prime Minister to get him out of it.

The voting public like to think they are being led. However liberated they may think they are, they most certainly 
don’t expect him to be seen being led by the ear by his consort and her lady friends.

Come on, Boris, apply yourself, show some backbone, get a principal private secretary to run your office, a wise old political hand with a nose for trouble and a bark not worse than his bite and a press secretary whose one aim is credibility.

And forget about White House-style media briefings. Don’t make rods for your own back.

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