The work and pensions secretary’s colleagues must be trapped under something heavy because no one but Stride is pulling their weight

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Regrettably many of us will have been awake a long time today before the latest broadcast round undertaken by the Last Cabinet Minister, Mel Stride. Even so, a Mel Stride appearance during this election has developed a strong flavour of all those mornings in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray’s clock radio lurches into life halfway through I Got You Babe. The dormant voter need only hear the genial work and pensions secretary say “let’s not get too carried away here” to sit bolt upright as the grim reality dawns once more. As the long days have passed, these listeners have worked their way through all the emotions: disbelief, anger, resignation, smash radio, restart cycle. Just hearing that Stride is “joining us after the headlines” or “up next” produces a Pavlovian response: a million-yard stare and the realisation that it is the general election again – it is somehow still the general election – and, indeed, it may always and for ever be the general election.

And yet, to lightly adapt the words that once graced Mario Balotelli’s base layer: “WHY ALWAYS MEL?” Even broadcast interviewers playing the Sonny to Mel’s Cher have begun to ask where the rest of the cabinet are. It’s honestly hard to say. Ladbrokes? I cannot remember a single general election where the cabinet has been so utterly invisible in the national campaign. They may as well be in witness protection.