Today he finds himself in turmoil, his Coalition colleagues openly questioning his judgment and large numbers of Australians mocking him over his latest stumble.

For all his relentless criticism of Labor's kitchen cabinet and dysfunctional top office, his situation is not greatly dissimilar to that of his predecessors, with government MPs talking about a meeting to discuss the direction of the team and several prominent Liberals questioning his leadership over the latest debacle, the Australian knighthood for the Queen's husband, Prince Philip. The one notable difference is that there is no obvious contender undermining his leadership – this mess is almost entirely of his own making.

With Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop's name being floated as a potential replacement for Mr Abbott, he is now facing the very real threat of being unseated within his first term, something that would have been unthinkable just 12 months ago. It's not hard to see parallels with the disastrous unravelling that condemned Labor to opposition.

While no party wants to revisit the backstabbing regicide of Rudd v Gillard, it is clear that the Liberals will not stick by a prime minister if they think he has no chance of winning the next election. Abbott is not yet in that position, but unless he makes a dramatic change of course and quickly, he will be unable to recover, leaving his party with a major problem.

What makes the situation potentially terminal for the Prime Minister is that the very worst of the debacles can be traced directly back to his own door. The original decision to reinstate the system of Australian knights and dames, the $20 cut to the medicare rebate and now the decision to make a British royal one of only two knights named in this year's awards are among the most unpopular decisions this government has made to date. And they are all self-proclaimed captain's picks, unilateral decisions by a leader who thought his judgment was superior to that of his colleagues.

Every one of Mr Abbott's "captain's picks", starting with his overly generous paid maternity leave scheme, has fallen flat on its face, but he has belligerently pressed on, continuing to make disastrous calls on his own while refusing to learn the lessons of the past.

It's hard to know exactly why Mr Abbott, who was incredibly disciplined as opposition leader, has started making random, erratic decisions without consulting all but a few of his colleagues, and what he'll do next. Perhaps it is because deep down he had doubts of his own and knew that he would have a hard time defending his big ticket ideas in front of cabinet.

If the decision to knight the Duke of Edinburgh was a deliberate tactic to agitate his detractors on the left, he has vastly overreached by upsetting his own camp as well. The dog whistle that proved so effective for his mentor John Howard has proved to be a blunt instrument in Mr Abbott's hands, where a move to fire a cap at the republicans could well prove to be a dropped grenade in his own yard.

It is possible for Mr Abbott to reset the mood within his party room, but it will be difficult with so many noses already out of joint. What seems to have most upset Mr Abbott's colleagues is that their views were not sought, they were not given an opportunity to stress test the ideas coming forward, and were not part of setting the direction they now find themselves headed in.

There is plenty of experience within the Coalition. If the Prime Minister really wants his ideas to become government policy, his own ministers must surely be the first people he has to convince before foisting another thought-bubble on the public.

While there is prime ministerial blood in the water, his challengers have not yet begun to circle. But it is only a matter of time. There are some within the party who believe they can do a better job than Mr Abbott at leading the country. Unless he can unite his team and make allies of his potential replacements, this latest stumble may well prove to be fatal.