MONTREAL—Stephen Harper was always a political loner but these days he mostly just looks isolated.

Jim Flaherty — the happy warrior who helped steer a dour government through two minority mandates and a global economic crisis — is gone.

So is the strategist who engineered Harper’s political victories. Senator Doug Finley succumbed to cancer a year ago.

Other former members of the prime minister’s inner circle are dead to him in other ways.

The RCMP is still looking into the circumstances that led to the Senate spending scandal and the resignation of PMO chief of staff Nigel Wright last year. Harper washed his hands of that former top aide months ago.

Dimitri Soudas — a protege who was once so close to the PM that he could claim that his boss was speaking through his mouth — was similarly disposed of.

It had been only a few months since Harper had appointed Soudas as the party’s executive director when he was let go for having meddled fiancée Eve Adams’ nomination battle. His short tenure increased rather than appeased caucus unrest.

Another former chief of staff is turning into an uncommonly prolific and critical former PMO insider.

In an upcoming book Tom Flanagan — who led Harper’s leadership and election teams before he transitioned with him to the PMO — writes of what he describes as the Nixonian side of the prime minister’s character.

At the same time, Harper’s take-no-prisoners approach to the country’s institutions is coming back to bite back.

Last month, a Supreme Court majority that included most of Harper’s own appointees found that he had been taking liberties with the letter of the court’s eligibility rules and invalidated his latest choice for the top bench.

A Senate committee similarly dominated by prime ministerial picks is reportedly unwilling to approve the so-called Fair Elections Act wholesale, even if it is the government’s signature legislation for this session and even if Harper has defended every single line of it in the House of Commons.

Meanwhile, government MPs are pushing hard for more freedom — in some cases taking matters in to their own hands — or, alternatively, leaving politics.

After nearly a decade as prime minister, Harper’s capacity to reward loyalty is no longer what it used to be; nor is his latitude to punish those who cross him.

The prime minister can technically still appoint senators but a lingering scandal makes that politically suicidal. And on the heels of a string of bad appointments his judgment has widely been called into question.

Meanwhile, the more ambitious Conservatives are looking beyond Harper’s reign. The more timorous are afraid he might take them down with him.

Harper’s approval rating has fallen below 30 per cent. So have party fortunes in voting intentions. This is not a passing slump. It has endured for more than a year. And that can only exacerbate pre-existing tensions within a jittery party.

The coming-together of the Reform/Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives was never more than a marriage of convenience. Now the Tory wing of Harper’s reconstituted party is reasserting itself.

Brian Mulroney — a predecessor that the prime minister declared persona non grata over his dealings with lobbyist Karlheinz Shreiber a few years ago — is back on the Conservative celebrity speaking circuit.

Last week droves of Conservative aides, MPs and ministers came out to hear Mulroney deliver a keynote speech on energy policy. They gave him two standing ovations. Ministers John Baird and Peter MacKay respectively introduced and thanked the former prime minister.

In Harper’s own Calgary backyard last weekend, Conservative members removed loyalist Rob Anders — a six-term backbencher — as their 2015 candidate for the riding of Signal Hill.

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They selected former Alberta minister Ron Liepert in defiance of the recommendation of Jason Kenney, the jobs minister, who doubles as Harper’s most influential Alberta cabinet member.

Former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe once compared leading his party to a devastating defeat in 2011 to being trapped on an elevator in free fall. It is time to put a safety warning on the door of Harper 2015 re-election ride.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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