The Tories are in a funk. MPs mutter about the Prime Minister. Cabinet ministers jockey for position. Pundits question the purpose and identity of the Government.

Some complain ministers are spending too much. Some worry that without tax cuts and deregulation we are getting “the wrong Brexit”. Some believe that the Tory electoral coalition – comprising the so-called Blue and Red Walls – is simply impossible to serve and doomed to rupture. But is it really so?

It is true, of course, that public spending rocketed during the cycle of lockdowns. But the furlough scheme and the interventions to keep firms alive while the economy was shuttered were extraordinary measures during a severe crisis. They successfully reduced the economic scarring and social costs of unemployment. But they tell us little about policy beyond Covid.

One reason for higher spending – oddly overlooked by many tax campaigners – is that we are a rapidly ageing country. At the turn of the century, one in six of us was older than 65. Today, it is one in five of us, and within 20 years it will be one in four. By then, less than 60 per cent of the population will be of working age. So unless ministers want to slash spending on pensions, health and social care, the amount we spend overall – and the taxes we pay – will unavoidably increase.

But another reason for higher spending is a conscious choice. For many of the supply-side reforms the economy needs do not require tax cuts and deregulation, but investment: in infrastructure and in the education and skills our country needs. Yes, we need to reform the property market and get more houses built, and yes, after Brexit we can do more to promote innovation in high-growth sectors such as tech and life sciences. But ministers have judged – rightly – that economic reform requires up-front investment.

Those who dislike this direction of travel rarely explain what they would do to meet the growing costs of our ageing society, or how they would train and retrain the country’s workforce. Instead, they are taking their frustrations out on the Government’s two big missions: Brexit, and the aim to “level-up” the country. In both respects they are mistaken.

Brexit was never going to be a neo-Thatcherite mission to shrink the state and turn Britain into a European Singapore. Most voters who backed Leave wanted national sovereignty, democratic control and stronger solidarity between citizens. Brexit was popular in places where workers had been squeezed by the bifurcating labour market, caused in part by globalisation. It was followed by a pandemic that highlighted the dangers of stretched global supply chains, a lack of domestic manufacturing capacity and exposure to the Chinese state. These all make the dream of libertarian Leavers even more fanciful.

Neither is levelling-up some kind of luxury policy the country can afford to live without. If we want Britain to be a safe and prosperous place to live, we will need to fulfil the economic potential of all its cities, towns and regions. It is a simple question of fairness that opportunity and a good standard of living exist across the country. As the PM argued in his party conference speech, improving the economic performance of under-performing regions helps to take the pressure off London and the South East, where the housing market and transport infrastructure are under huge strain thanks to overpopulation.

It is true that there will sometimes be tensions between the interests of the old Blue Wall of more prosperous constituencies and the newly won Red Wall seats. The profile of public spending is changing, ending the old bias in favour of the South East and doing more to help the regions. On the other hand, the social-care policy adopted by the Government benefits wealthier homeowners at the expense of working-age taxpayers and those with more modestly valued assets.

But electoral coalitions always require politicians to make calls on who should be the winners and losers of policy. And eventually the coalition of Tory support will collapse, for that is the nature of changing events and democratic politics. But little suggests such a collapse is imminent.

Labour is struggling to form its own winning coalition, and we should recall the original definition of Red Wall seats: they were places where demographics suggested that people could have voted Conservative but did not, usually voting Labour instead, thanks to locally specific cultures and habits. Tory voters are, on average, more provincial and less prosperous than they once were, but there is plenty – on economic and cultural issues – that can keep the new and old supporters together.

With defensive by-elections approaching (a no-win situation for the talented new party chairman, Oliver Dowden), a mini-slump in the polls, and worries about political space for a challenge opening up from the Right, the Tories are not yet panicking, although the worrying and grumbling is undoubtedly growing louder.

The solution to the funk is not to fantasise about unrealistic fiscal policies, nor to flirt with Covid libertarianism. If political space does open on the Right, it will be caused not by economic policies but by a failure to control immigration, cut crime and stand up to Left-wing culture warriors in public institutions and direct-action protests.

And at a time when the Government’s competence is under attack, its handling of Covid – the vaccine programme, the avoidance of the surge in cases we see in Europe, and now a sensible response to the omicron variant – should be defended with confidence by Conservative MPs.

The Tories need to go the whole hog with their strategy to become more interventionist in the economy, and more robust on culture. They must be competent enough to deliver the things they promise to do, such as sorting out the Channel crossings. And they should tell their story in a way that makes better sense, which means stopping Cabinet ministers running their own discordant and insubordinate campaigns.

This wobble need not be the end of the world for the Tories, but they need quickly to get a grip, not lose their nerve.