Andrew Lansley snubbed – again – as Stephen O’Brien heads off to the UN

Poor old Andrew Lansley. When he quit as Health Secretary he was touted as Britain’s next EU Commissioner – that didn’t happen. In return for agreeing to stand down from parliament, he was promised another sinecure. David Cameron had been lining up his former Health Secretary (and former mentor) to become UN humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator.

But Mr S understands that this idea was rejected by UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, because he didn’t want Cameron’s cast-offs. ‘Ban didn’t want a job like this being used as some kind of compensation,’ says one well-placed source. ‘He wanted to know: if Lansley isn’t good enough for the Conservative Party why would be be good enough for the UN?’ (The same thought had occurred to the Labour Party, and a petition to stop Lansley attracted 70,000 signatures).

So the job has just gone to another Tory MP, and one who was not planning to quit: Stephen O’Brien. He has far-better credentials: he was a DFID minister for the first two years of Cameron’s government and has a long personal interest in third world development.