  stephen rothwell o'brien (born 1 april 1957) is a conservative party politician in the united kingdom. he is member of parliament (mp) for eddisbury, and was first elected in a by-election in july 1999, after alastair goodlad was made high commissioner for australia by tony blair and thus had to leave parliament. within the conservative-liberal democrat coalition, he was appointed as the parliamentary undersecretary of state in the department for international development. since september 2013 he has been the prime minister's envoy to the sahel, encompassing 9 countries across north and west africa. ==early life== he was born in mtwara, tanganyika territory and educated at loretto school in mombasa, at the handbridge school (chester), the heronwater school (abergele), sedbergh school and emmanuel college, cambridge. at cambridge, he gained an ma in law in 1979, then collected an ma from the college of law in chester in 1980. after two years articles, he qualified as a solicitor in 1983 and practised until 1988 at solicitors freshfields (city of london). from 1988-98, he was group secretary and director of strategic and corporate affairs at redland plc. he was the executive director of redland clay tile in mexico from 1994-98.  o'brien is a former member of the sdp.{
1957_births Alumni_of_Emmanuel_College,_Cambridge Conservative_Party_(UK)_MPs Living_people Members_of_the_Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom_for_English_constituencies Members_of_the_Privy_Council_of_the_United_Kingdom People_educated_at_Sedbergh_School Social_Democratic_Party_(UK)_politicians UK_MPs_1997a2001 UK_MPs_2001a05 UK_MPs_2005a10 UK_MPs_2010a