Boris Johnson's conduct and Tory woes have been gifts to Labour - Andew Vine

Sir Keir Starmer could be forgiven for believing so. Opinion polls point to a steady upturn in his party’s fortunes and a growing public belief that he is a credible Prime Minister in waiting.

If the opinion polls are to be believed, Sir Keir’s sensible manner and forensic questioning of Boris Johnson are beginning to make an impression on an electorate which might have made its mind up that the Government is chaotic and out of touch.

On the contrary, Labour’s front bench – bolstered by the presence of two Yorkshire MPs, Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper, in key roles – is starting to project an air of competence.

The Prime Minister’s disreputable conduct and the dissent in his own ranks have been gifts to Labour.

Christmas revels at 10 Downing Street in 2020 whilst the rest of the country was following the coronavirus rules and separated from loved ones will live long in the public’s memory, and it is likely that the financial murkiness surrounding the refurbishment of Mr Johnson’s flat will return to haunt him.

So if Sir Keir can look forward to 2022 with optimism, it’s possible that behind Mr Johnson’s breezy and assured public persona, there is more than a touch of worry about what the coming 12 months might bring.

A poll of 25,000 people last week delivered some startling verdicts, all of which were bad news for the Conservatives.

It found that if a general election was held now, Labour would win with a majority of 26 seats – and that Mr Johnson would be ousted from his own Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.

Even if the Prime Minister shrugs off the polling, there are those on the Conservative benches who might be seriously concerned by it, especially here in the North.

If Labour won the next election by a margin of 26, it would mean many of the red wall seats it lost to the Conservatives in 2019 returned to their traditional allegiance.

Of course, the country has seen enough wildly inaccurate opinion polls over the years to be sceptical about their findings.

The latest predictions could be laughably wide of the mark, and an electorate that backed Mr Johnson so resoundingly in 2019 may just roll their eyes at his antics and vote for him again anyway.

But a pattern has emerged in polling over the past few months that is not so easy for the Conservatives to shrug off, because it shows a consistent

rise in the public’s regard for Sir Keir and an equally steady decline in how much it trusts Mr Johnson.

That is bad news for the Government as Mr Johnson tries to start the new year by putting the scandals and missteps of the final quarter of 2021 behind him.

And there could be even worse news to come for him in the next four months.

It remains to be seen whether the harshest winter months will put the NHS under intolerable pressure due to Covid and bring the usual seasonal upsurge in hospital admissions.

Then in April comes the start of the public inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic, which is likely to confirm what the country already knows – that it was scandalously inept in the early stages which resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, especially in care homes exposed to a wave of infections.

At around the same time, every household is going to find itself poorer because of the national insurance increase to raise more money for the care system.

Even worse, soaring energy prices could see heating costs double, with some predictions of annual bills going as high as £2,000 a year.

For the North especially, where average incomes are lower, that would hit with devastating force, leaving some families forced to choose between keeping their home warm or putting food on the table.

The Government might argue that it has limited control over escalating wholesale gas prices, but that won’t wash with the public, who will blame Ministers for their crippling bills.

If the North turns its back on Mr Johnson, he’s in real trouble.

The long-awaited white paper on levelling up is due imminently, and it will have to offer firm ideas and the pledge of funding if voters in our region and elsewhere are not to conclude that promises to give the places they live a fairer deal are just empty slogans.

Perhaps the greatest danger to Mr Johnson comes from his own MPs, who have lauded him because he is an election winner.

If he starts to look like a potential loser who could drag them down too, those MPs will turn on him.

As a student of history who remembers what happened to Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, Mr Johnson should be only too aware of how merciless his own party can be towards failing leaders.

And that could make for a less-than-happy New Year for the Prime Minister.