Those of us who have been about for a few decades are always looking for lessons of history when trying to work out what will happen next - and Rishi Sunak's 2022 government is looking more and more like John Major's in 1995 every day.

Both governments are led by basically pragmatic technocrats more interested in making the economy work successfully than in any great ideological dream.

Both are suffering from attacks from outside the party and - more worryingly for them - from their own Conservative colleagues.

And like Mr Major, I suspect the current PM will be more highly regarded once he has left Number 10 than he ever is while in residence there!

East Anglian Daily Times: Sir John Major, who was MP for Huntingdon from 1979 to 2001, said of the Owen Paterson affair that the way the Government it "was shameful, wrong and unworthy of this or indeed any government".

I'm not going to write a political history lesson about the events of the 1992-97 Conservative government, but today things look bleak for Mr Sunak.

I do think he is genuine in his desire to put the economy back on an even keel after the storms of the last few years - but many of his party members and some of his backbench MPs are more interested in throwing a teenage strop over the dethroning of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Whatever he is able to achieve over the next 18 months will cut little ice when the campaigning for the 2024 general election starts.

I suspect there will be little enthusiasm for him from many Tories - and they will be confronted by a re-invigorated opposition looking forward to the chance to return to power for the first time in 14 years.

We are already seeing Tory MPs and even ministers apparently on the way up deciding to pack it in - and you can't really blame them.

Matt Hancock's decision to stand down at the next election was no real surprise after his relative success in the Australian jungle - why put yourself through five years of oppositionn politics when you can establish yourself as a TV personality?

Chloe Smith has a young family and has had health issues over recent years.

Why should she put herself through the near hopeless task of hanging on to the highly marginal seat of Norwich North in 2024 when the whole campaign seems certain to end in tears?

Sajid Javid has one of the safest Conservative seats in the country in Bromsgrove in Worcestershire - and developed a reputation as being a very effective cabinet minister.

But he has never been an ideologue - he's more interested in delivering successful policies than spending time navel-gazing in opposition!

I suspect he's worked out that given what happened in 1997, the Tories are likely to be in opposition for 10 years than five after the next election and his chances of getting back into government are minimal!

A couple of years after the 1997 election I saw an interview with a former Tory minister who had lost his seat and moved into another high-powered job.

He was asked what he would have done differently in the run-up to the election. His answer: "I wouldn't have stood again. I knew we were going to get beaten. I knew I was likely to lose my seat yet I put myself through five weeks of misery in that campaign!"

There are some Sunak loyalists who cling to the hope that he will produce an economic miracle in the next 18 months and voters will reward him with a 1992-style resurrection.

One said to me that the number of general elections we've had recently meant that the UK had become more like Australia which has elections every three years - and where political memories can be very short.

I'm not sure I think that will happen in this country - I can't see the polls swinging in the Conservatives' favour enough for them to undo the damage caused by the end of the Johnson Premiership and the Truss horror show in the next 18 to 24 months!

There comes a point in any government when the public mood flips and the desire for change - for new faces to run things - just becomes overwhelming.

 It happened to the Tories in 1995-7, it happened to Labour in 2008-10, and it's happening to the Tories again now.

The big question for them is, how their party will react this time when it suffers a crushing defeat in the next election? But that's a debate for another occasion!