Prime Ministers strain credulity as they conflate the national interest with their own political goals, but history shows when they predict a backlash from voters, they usually know what they are talking about.

Remember June 18, 2010, when the previously poll-leading Kevin Rudd told the ABC he expected to continue taking "a whacking in the polls" over his mining tax debacle?

It had been a steep descent begun with the retreat on emissions trading and then accelerated with the poorly argued super-profits tax.

His colleagues could read the polls too and the PM was rolled just one week later. So much for managing expectations in the hope of keeping things sweet.

On Tuesday, the embattled Tony Abbott was at it too. His coded message to the colleagues was of a similar piece to Rudd's.

In the still turbulent wake of the Bronwyn Bishop affair, Abbott wants the team to know he's hurting too.

"Whenever things like this arise, there is a price to pay and sure, the government has inevitably paid a price and I dare say there will be a little personal price for me," he opined on Adelaide radio.

"But let's not forget that while Bronwyn herself made some very serious mistakes, ultimately she was the one who paid the highest price. She's lost the position that she loved and it's likely that her career in the parliament is substantially at an end. Now, that's a high price for someone who has dedicated 30-odd years to very intense public service."

How bad is this problem? Man overboard, or in this case, woman. But she may not be the last.

Abbott has slowly wound up his outrage meter as "Bronny" disappears from the rear-view mirror and he finds the bead of voters.

Yet his colleagues can't believe he would have stuck with her indefinitely had they not begun their own march away by threatening to abstain from a planned no-confidence vote.

Make no mistake, this was morphing quickly into a full-blown leadership crisis for Abbott, amid growing concerns about his judgment every bit as dangerous for him as the same doubts were to Rudd and Julia Gillard.

As one MP asked on Monday, "Who was he listening to when he went into the weekend believing she could survive?"

It seems he came closer than many realise to transforming that "little personal price" into something much less manageable.

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