Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard revealed his distaste of his deputy prime minister in a memoir scheduled for publication next week, describing Peter Costello as an elite politician who was out of touch with the Australian public.

The former Liberal prime minister also put the blame on his deputy for failing to ascend into the leadership and thereby sustain the Coalition rule by accusing Mr Costello of pre-empting him when the latter made public an alleged handover agreement between the two politicians.

History had it that Mr Howard clung on his post until he lost his parliamentary seat and the Australian Labor Party snatched the government power from the Coalition.

Analysts said that the renewed hostilities between the two Liberal leaders could lead to irreparable damages on Mr Howard's legacy, who is one of the longest-serving Australian prime ministers.

In turn and despite their very public rivalry, Mr Costello hold off his guns against his former boss as the two survived 11 years of effective and historic leadership that steered Australia for much of the 1990s and the start of the millennium.

He, however, held the former prime minister responsible for bungling the 2007 elections that saw the Liberals being chased out of power by the then popular Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party, stressing that "Howard never managed a transition."

Yet with the latest tirades coming from Mr Howard, analysts believed that the former prime minister is attempting to distance himself from the trouncing that the Liberals suffered in 2007 by picturing Mr Costello as a lacklustre leader eventually incapable of assuming the top post in the Australian government.