We can at least talk about it without pretending it isn’t really there.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once declared: Of that which is ineffable, let it not be spoken. And Malcolm Turnbull could not agree more.

The idea that if you dont mention the unpleasant it will somehow go away, if not cease to exist entirely, has a long tradition in the history superstition and magic.

Numerous authors have used it in modern times: those who may not be named included J R Tolkeins Sauron and J K Rowlingss Voldemort. But they were relying on legends from centuries millennia even – old.

The Greek Furies, the Erinyes, implacable goddesses of vengeance, had names but they were seldom if ever used. Instead the Greeks attempted to appease them with flattery: they were called The Eumenides, the kindly ones, which they were emphatically not the same trick was used for the notorious treacherous waters of the Black Sea, which was christened the Euxine the kindly one.

The Eumenides was the name the great playwright Aeschylus used as he sought to rehabilitate them as the judges and protectors of the Athenians, in the final section of the tragedy of the matricide Orestes. When the Peloponnesian wars broke out a few years later, we saw how well that worked.

Malcolm Turnbull is apparently trying the same magical solution to the Tony Abbott problem: last week he called his relentless opponent the gentleman you describe not naming, him or calling him that bastard, but offering an oh so polite euphemism. But it wont work it never has and it never will.

Sooner or later, the threat has to be faced, and, as so often, there is an Australian precedent. Back in 1952 the great Labor split was already gathering pace. The anti-communist industrial groups, overwhelmingly backed by the Roman Catholic hierarchy were making serious inroads into the federal ALP under the leadership of Doc Evatt.

The titular head of the movement was Melbournes archbishop Daniel Mannix, but the real work the subversion, as Evatt and his allies called it was run by the prelates acolyte, the shadowy, even sinister figure Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria.

He became the target of fear and paranoia within the caucus room: Clyde Cameron recalled that when he pronounced the dreaded name, Arthur Calwell called him out and berated him: God almighty, dont ever do that again! Dont ever mention his name!

So they didnt, but of course it didnt make any difference.. The party split amongst acrimony and resentment and the resulting feuds and vendettas lasted for decades, leaving Labor in the political wilderness for 23 years.

This is not yet the prospect for the Liberals at least not yet. But Pauline Hanson, Cory Bernardi and their like are waiting eagerly to embrace defectors, and Abbott, as has been repeatedly observed by his colleagues, is not helping.

It should be noted that the Abbott insurgency is not, at its heart, sectarian; but then, according to Santamaria himself, nor was the split of the 1950s. Nor, despite Abbotts protestations, is the current showdown one of policy, ideology and belief. It is about power, revenge and vindication very much the purview of the Erinyes.

So perhaps, to clear the air, we need to name them all, including the fourth: Alecto, Megaera. Tisiphone and Tony. There, thats feels better or at least more rational. It may not solve the problem, but we can at least talk about it without pretending it isnt really there.