Under siege from enemies inside the Vatican and beyond, the embattled pontiff, (supposedly) understood that the derision which flows from the loss of public respect, erodes prestige far more effectively than some remote military setback ever could. Illustration: Cathy Wilcox It is a lesson our monarchist prime minister and former student of the church of Rome, might well consider. Already vulnerable over his idiosyncratic revival of British imperial honours - itself a captain's call from a 2014 heavy with poor judgment calls - Abbott can ill-afford to alienate his colleagues right now. Yet his bizarre selection of the husband of the British monarch for Australia's top civic award has done just that. Ridicule abounds. His own MPs are variously bemused and appalled. One minister offering the simple, "I'm speechless" as a marker of incredulity.

Words such as crazy, nutty, and needlessly provocative were also used. An MP from the conservative right of the party in Mr Abbott's home state, predicted it would spark fresh questioning of the Prime Minister's suitability for the job. A change seems unlikely but it is the cumulative risk of errors. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook went into a frenzy. Abbott dismissed them as "electronic graffiti". Such thinking is wishful at best. Inevitably Abbott was grilled about who had been consulted, and why it was that no Australian other than the former Chief of Defence Forces, Angus Houston, had been found.

Tellingly, even though it was his call and had been announced just hours before, Abbott seemed annoyed and eager to move discussion on to other matters. There's little chance of that happening inside the Coalition though, with MPs expected to explain what many do not support and cannot understand. As Fairfax Media reported on Saturday, Abbott has been ringing his colleagues at the start of 2015 as part of a new consultation-based approach to governing. Yet this is precisely the kind of left-field bombshell that has made the government look ideologically hide-bound and out of touch with mainstream thinking. Prince Philip's knighthood all but swamped Houston's appointment and saw Rosie Batty's selection of Australian of the Year also overwhelmed.

"Another defeat" grumbled a Liberal MP, as the evidence piles up that 2015 will be no easier then 2014. Follow us on Twitter