Boris Johnson was today given an Autumn deadline to save his premiership by a Tory who used to be one of his closest allies.
Lord Frost, who Mr Johnson put in the Lords and the Cabinet to negotiate Brexit, warned the PM has only months to set out a clear Conservative vision for the future or face being ousted.
The peer said despite Boris Johnson surviving a no confidence vote 211-148, he faces a "depth of opposition" in his own party.
Boris Johnson brought the former whisky publicist to government as a £125,000-a-year Special Advisor before giving him a seat in the Lords in summer 2020.
He then appointed him to the Cabinet to "lead the UK's institutional and strategic relationship with the EU".
But Lord Frost resigned in December over "concerns about the current direction of travel" and has since become an outspoken critic of Tory tax hikes.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he said the biggest problem for Boris Johnson is now a policy vacuum, not Partygate.
"Like the cockpit of a crashing airliner, the dashboard lights are all flashing red. The Government has to decide which problems must be dealt with now and which can be left until later," he said.
He said the ministers should focus on reversing tax increases, "credibly" committing to future cuts, slashing VAT on energy bills and opening up fracking.
He also called on Mr Johnson to carry out a Cabinet reshuffle with the appointment of a "serious deputy" who could "design and deliver the strategy".
"This is ambitious. I can see why many people think the Prime Minister can't deliver it. He doesn't like upsetting people. But any serious plan means making choices," he said.
"Many of us still want him to succeed and will support him if he shows a sense of purpose. But he has to show things will be different now."
Lord Frost added: "Every prime minister has weaknesses and blind spots.
"The issue is whether they are able to compensate for them, by having the right people, by taking good advice, and by setting a clear policy direction with broad support.
"Mr Johnson probably has between now and the party conference to show he can do that."
Yesterday the PM tried to set his premiership back on track with a speech expanding right-to-buy to housing association tenants and letting people put benefits towards a mortgage.
But critics said the plan was full of holes and unanswered questions and would not solve the housing crisis.
Former Conservative leader William Hague warned this week the PM should "turn his mind to getting out in a way that spares party and country such agonies and uncertainties."
Tory critic Tobias Ellwood said in “normal times” the PM would have resigned and Boris Johnson had earned only a “stay of execution”, despite his allies’ “Trumpian attempt to mislead” about the result.
“I think we’re talking a matter of months up to party conference to show that," he said.
Tory veteran Sir Roger Gale, a long-time critic of Mr Johnson, told the BBC : “I would be surprised if this PM was still in 10 Downing Street by the end of the Autumn.
“There are significant problems just down the road, there are by-elections coming up, there is after the summer the report of the Privileges Committee.”
