1. John McTernan was born on 1959 and is a British political strategist and commentator.
18 Facts About John McTernan
1. 2.
John McTernan has been a political adviser to the Labour Party.
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John McTernan then worked on the November 2007 Australian Labor Party federal election campaign.
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John McTernan was born in London and grew up in Edinburgh, and attended Firrhill High School.
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John McTernan was political secretary and director of political operations at 10 Downing Street for Tony Blair from 2005 to 2007, where he provided political management and support for the development of the government's political strategy.
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In 2007, John McTernan was seconded to the Scottish Labour Party to run its campaign for the May 2007 Scottish Parliament election.
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John McTernan was special adviser to Jim Murphy MP, the Secretary of State for Scotland from 2008 until 2010.
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In January 2008, while John McTernan was employed as a special adviser to the Secretary of State for Scotland, it emerged that in 2002 John McTernan had branded Scotland as being "narrow" and "racist" during the period he worked for the Scottish Arts Council.
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In January 2015, John McTernan was appointed chief of staff to Jim Murphy, then Scottish Labour leader, ahead of the 2015 general election, and oversaw media and policy in this role.
10.
John McTernan strongly opposed Jeremy Corbyn, the eventual winner, in the 2015 Labour leadership election, describing Corbyn's popularity as a "strange psychological emotional spasm".
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John McTernan said: "I can't see any case for letting him have two minutes in office, let alone two years in office because I think the damage that will be done to the Labour party in that period makes it incredibly hard to recover".
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In February 2016 John McTernan joined the policy and media advice agency Westminster Policy Institute as an associate.
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John McTernan continued to write a regular column for The Daily Telegraph.
14.
Campbell has said that John McTernan failed to honour the bet, and Campbell has taken court action against him.
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John McTernan had previously been a critic of Momentum and of Corbyn.
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In October 2018, John McTernan was asked if he still defended the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
17.
John McTernan went on to argue that Brexit was the result of a lack of a humanitarian intervention in the Syrian civil war because it would have prevented the refugee crisis.
18.
In November 2024, Prime Minister Keir Starmer distanced himself from John McTernan following comments he made on GB News while discussing inheritance tax rises in the budget which would affect farmers.