Spare a thought for Neil O’Brien. A minister so beige, so junior, that not even his colleagues know he is working with them. At home, he merges into the muted pastel paintwork. So much so that his family aren’t always aware if he’s there or not. So it’s a wonder he even became a minister, given that few had ever seen him, let alone heard of him. But when the Tory government ricochets as often as it does, then almost everyone eventually gets a go. Only the actual braindead remain on the backbenches in the current Conservative party.
O’Brien first came to anyone’s notice when he resigned as a bag carrier at the Department of Levelling Up in the dying days of the Boris Johnson regime. Which came as news to The Convict, who couldn’t remember appointing him. But lightning struck twice and O’Brien was invited back by Rishi Sunak to serve in the most junior possible role in his government, this time in the Department of Health and Social Care. There to be forgotten, as his brief was to do as little as possible.
