If ever there was a Houdini equivalent in politics in this country the undisputed wearer of the title would be Luigi Peters.

He's been in so many tight spots over the years that as a political escape artist he has no equal. Think about his roller coaster record.

As a National party pinup boy he came into Parliament in 1978 but lasted only three years. Three years later though, when his bewildered mentor Rob Muldoon was being swept out of office at the schnapps election, he went against the tide was re-elected on the Tory ticket.

When Jim Bolger came to power in 1990, after the implosion of Lange's Labour lot, Luigi was the only one not smiling in the Cabinet line-up photograph at Government House. He'd been consistently polling higher than Bolger who had to be persuaded to even put him in Cabinet.

Luigi clearly felt his 17th ranking was beneath him and in three years the inevitable happened, he fell out with the Nats and Bolger sacked him so he went off on his own, resigning his Tauranga seat, forcing a by-election and easily winning it back as an independent.

Just before the next election New Zealand First was born and Peters was back with a caucus of one, Tau Henare. At the next election, and after indicating to voters that a vote for his party would be a vote against National, he turned around and joined in coalition with them, wringing the Treasury and Deputy Prime Minister roles out of the desperate Bolger.

Bolger wasn't the survivor that Peters had proven himself to be though and he was dealt to by Big Jen Shipley who had little in common with Luigi and she ended up sacking him too.

Peters was once again fighting for his political life and in the election that swept Helen Clark to power he didn't even make the five percent threshold but managed to hold on to his Tauranga seat with just 63 votes which saw his party diminished from 17 to just five MPs.

Clark wasn't interested in him, preferring to govern with the rocky Alliance.

Three years later though having publicly eschewed the baubles of office during the election campaign he took the prime bauble, Foreign Affairs, which saw him out of the country and out of Clark's hair for much of the next three years.

He failed to even make the grade at the next election, spending three years in the wilderness, but came back as John Key swept Helen Clark to the United Nations.

Like Clark initially, Key hasn't warmed to Peters, although that could change at the next election.

Our political Houdini turned 70 over the weekend but refused to celebrate saying birthday parties aren't for him, he was one of 11 kids and they never had time for them.

Clearly the only party in his book is a political one and for him the party's far from over yet!