Christopher Pyne

''Poodle'', ''mincing'' and ''loathed'' are just some of the epithets used to describe Christopher Pyne, but ''annoying'', ''schoolboy'' and ''juvenile'' are the ones you'll most often hear.

Which may make it hard to believe that, now Nick Minchin has retired from parliament, the bumptious boy from Adelaide is the Liberals' leading power broker, now.

''He will be instrumental and decisive in every leadership contest from now until government and beyond,'' says one well-known Liberal MP. ''He travels all over the country, knows all the MPs and the party organisation, and he's been at it for nearly 20 years, so he has a really solid base. There's no question he's the most powerful person in the party after Abbott.''

Not only is Pyne Tony Abbott's No. 1 supporter and most trusted tactician, but the two men have been friends for more than a decade. ''It's the Jesuit connection,'' says one seasoned journalist, who has watched them break bread many times at Portia's Place, a Chinese restaurant in Canberra. ''Since the late 1990s, Abbott has booked a table in the window every Monday while parliament is sitting. And in the early days it was always him holding court to Chris Pyne and Joe Hockey and the other Catholic boys.''

Pyne and his leader are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. But even though Christopher is a self-styled moderate, republican, ardent Peter Costello supporter and leader of the Liberal Left, he takes a hard line on drugs, abortion and stem-cell research, like so many Catholics. He also has WA Senator Matthias Corman, the Right's answer to Arnie Schwarznegger, as a prominent Facebook friend.

One small ''l'' Liberal from Victoria describes Pyne as being ''very right wing on every issue'. And, like Abbott, he is anything but moderate in the way he plays the game.

''Because he plays his politics hard, he does make enemies,'' says his old Adelaide foe, the Right's Nick Minchin. ''Where there is power to be gained, he will seek it; ruthlessly do numbers, ruthlessly pursue political goals without deference to what others might consider to be the niceties."

Pyne draws his power from his formidable media contacts, immense energy and insatiable appetite for self promotion. His personal website, pyneonline, offers transcripts of all his latest interviews and media releases (there are scores), plus a potted bio (''About Christopher''), and links to his Twitter, Facebook, Flickr sites and YouTube appearances, replete with glossy photos of himself, his wife, his four children and his adoring Mum.

Pyne also commands an army of willing foot soldiers. ''He works hard on the ground with Young Libs,'' says a senior Liberal Party official. ''He spends a lot of time running around, marshalling people, getting them involved, getting them organised, getting them obligated to him. He can get jobs for people, he can get people into seats, he has the numbers. He would have a huge influence on the South Australian state government if the Libs were in power there.''

Former NSW hard right MP Alex Hawke (now part of the so-called ''Sensible Right'') claims that Pyne takes the job so seriously he was on the floor at the Young Liberals conference in 2005 offering jobs to delegates if they voted against Hawke for president.

''Pyne is talented, effective and a very shrewd factional operator,'' says another Liberal powerbroker. ''He has personality, he's likeable and he really understands his colleagues. He runs the South Australian division of the party totally.''

Pyne has been in parliament for almost two decades, starting out as its youngest member in 1993, when he was elected to the Adelaide seat of Sturt after a 14-month pre-selection battle. To get there he had to knock off the incumbent, Ian Wilson, a well-liked local grandee whose family had held the seat for the best part of 40 years. The good burghers of Adelaide were scandalised when Pyne, then a young buck of 24, started campaigning against him. Bitter allegations of betrayal and branch stacking followed, but Pyne shrugged them off to emerge victorious. As he knows so well, you have to be tough, thick-skinned and great at marshalling support to do that.

Minchin first met him around that time. ''He seemed to be extraordinarily well-endowed with self-confidence and reeked of political ambition," he recalls. "He did rub a lot of people up the wrong way.''

Pyne got practically nowhere in parliament for the next 15 years, mainly because both John Howard and Minchin couldn't abide him. The final straw for them was when Pyne became Costello's numbers man for the challenges that never came. So it was hardly surprising he didn't prosper.

When Howard lost his seat in the 2007 election, Pyne stood for deputy leader to remind his colleagues he still had ambition—as if they could ever forget—finishing third behind Julie Bishop and Andrew Robb. But his real break came the following year when Malcolm Turnbull promoted him to Manager of Opposition Business in the House. He kept the job under Abbott, and has done it brilliantly, as the polls attest.

Many regard Pyne as the most annoying person in Australia, (two thirds of 22,672 respondents in a poll for The Age in 2010 clicked ''can't stand him''.) But he is a great asset to his leader. He is attack dog, enforcer, messenger, organiser, whipper-in and tireless spruiker for the Opposition cause. And if Abbott becomes prime minister he will be amply rewarded.

Irrepressible, unsquashable and unforgiving, he is not to be trifled with. ''Cory Bernardi is dead,'' Pyne allegedly said of his one-time close mate, the right-wing Liberal senator for South Australia, whom he fell out with in the 1990s. ''Cory will not get any office in the Liberal Party," he reportedly said. "My blood will run cold before he gets anything.''

''He's ruthless if you cross him,'' observes a well-known NSW Liberal MP.

Or as his erstwhile dinner companion Joe Hockey puts it: ''He is prepared to use all available tools to wreak revenge on those who attack him.''

We better watch out.