Revelations that Peter Costello shot his mouth off over dinner with three senior Canberra journalists in 2005 should probably be filed — along with the small legion of other Costello indiscretions — under P, somewhere between petulance, Peter Principle and pique. None of these continually reported digs amount to much more than verbal pouts, and none look likely to trouble Costello’s stubbornly persistent nemesis, the PM.

But Costello’s reported words are important this time for other reasons, not because of what the Treasurer said, but because of the decision the journalists involved made not to report it. Here is proof positive that journalists, when pushed by the authority figures whose affection and fellowship they crave, are happy to put two things to one side: first, their duty of care to their reading public and the trust given to our democracy’s fourth estate and second, their sense of professional competitiveness. What a supine, self-serving, clubbable lot.

As for you Treasurer, there are two days remaining in what will in all probability be the last Parliamentary sitting before the election. Two days left to turn your maddening, itching ambition to some sort of concrete purpose. Two days left to challenge. If, that is, you are man enough.