A DAY is a long time in politics. At least that's how long it took to turn Peter Luff from villain to something of a hero on the Tory benches.

Last week, this column told how Peter had made himself deeply unpopular by enforcing a three-line whip on a Friday - a day his colleagues normally reserve for surgeries and photo opportunities.

This forced them to tear up their diaries and spend an extra day in London in order to defend a Private Member's Bill from Labour attack.

The danger for Peter, a Treasury whip, was that no attack would come from the Government benches and his colleagues would have been left sitting on their hands.

But Labour did try to kill the Bill by "talking it out" - otherwise known as droning on for hours on end until it runs out of time.

And, because there were more than 100 Tory MPs present, they were able to call a vote demanding closure - which they won by a landslide.

It is quite some time since the Tories defeated the Government in a vote - and Peter's fellow MPs were delighted.

Indeed, most of them sent out press releases to celebrate.

Said Peter: "After being the most unpopular MP in Parliament, I can now say it has gone the other way.

"The Government was certainly surprised we had so many MPs there.

"Ruth Kelly (the Treasury's economic secretary) said she had never though we'd get 100 members to turn up. It was a good result."

The Bill, which deals with the complicated subject of pension annuities, now passes to its Committee stage.

"It's very likely the Government will use other procedural tricks to kill it, but the pressure is on them to come up with a better reform of the system," Peter added.