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The motto of the Melbourne University Press is "Books with Spine". The joke within the Labor Party at the moment is that its latest publication, from the pen of the former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello, has been written by a politician without one.

For the uninitiated, Mr Costello is the most tragic figure in Liberal Party politics - a politician who waited for almost a decade to be handed the prime ministership by his rival, John Howard, but who may now have lost the chance to claim what he believes is his rightful political bequest.

In an arrangement with shades of the famed "Granita deal" hatched between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Mr Howard reportedly promised to hand over the prime ministership to Costello after serving about five years in The Lodge. As we know, Mr Howard went on to serve 11. Mr Costello's reluctance to take on the prime minister, as Paul Keating did to oust Bob Hawke, has offered what his critics say is a profile in political cowardice. They say he has not got the "ticker"; that he is a spineless politician.

For the past few months, the Liberal Party has allowed its future to be held hostage by the publication date of Peter Costello's memoirs. Now, finally, on the eve of publication, Mr Costello has ended the speculation and announced in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald that he will be not be seeking the leadership of the Liberal Party.

the paper's parliamentary sketch writer, Annabel Crabb: "So here we are. After the longest and most politically erotic Dance of the Seven Veils modern observers can bear to recall, the last scarf has wafted to the floor. Peter Costello stands before us, exposed. And it turns out he's exactly the person we've always known him to be."

Over the past few months, as he's performed his burlesque-like political dance, Costello has been a real tease. At a tribute dinner in Melbourne last month, he quoted the old Woody Allen gag about what he would he would like to hear at his funeral. "I'd like to see them look at my casket and say: 'He's moving still. He's still alive!'" Now journalists can start writing his political obituaries.

Had he stayed, the former treasurer would have had little difficulty in ousting the present Liberal leader, Brendan Nelson. Now, Malcolm Turnbull, the present shadow treasurer, will probably make a move for the leadership, although many in his party deeply distrust the former leader of the Australian Republican Movement because they think he is a liberal (in the American and European sense rather than the Australian).

So far the best stuff from the Costello memoir offers more titillating details about a well-known plot line: the hatred he has for his former leader, Mr Howard - a feeling which is clearly mutual. He takes aim at the former prime minister's wife, Janette, calling her a "counsel of one" who blocked his path to The Lodge.

For what it's worth, I've always thought Mr Costello would have been a much more effective politician if he had been born in 19th-Century Britain rather than 20th-Century Australia. A bruising dispatch-box debater, he's famed for his withering parliamentary put-downs that led one of his political opponents to contemplate suicide. He even looks like he has come from the pages of a novel by Charles Dickens.

But in an age when the present Prime Minister Kevin Rudd rose to the top with the help of a regular spot on breakfast telly, he's not that comfortable on television and his bully-boy menace sometimes scares the viewers. Then there's the famous smirk, and the oft-heard accusation that he is terminally indecisive.

Few would doubt his economic expertise and parliamentary skill, but these days the really successful politicians require a compelling personal narrative to go with it. As his long-awaited memoir might show, Mr Costello never really had one.

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