John McTernan For political geeks like myself and people obsessed by twitter the work of John McTernan will be well known. For the rest here is a brief history. John is a classic career politician and has worked for the Labour Party in one capacity or another more or less since 1987. He is a kind of Malcolm Tucker figure but with more swearing. His jobs have included Special Adviser to Harriet Harman, Special Adviser to Henry McLeish, Special Adviser to No 10 under Tony Blair; he ran the 2007 Labour Campaign in the Scottish Parliamentary election and was Special Adviser to Jim Murphy while he was Scottish Secretary. Outside of politics John has never really has a real job which does beg the question as to how he can advise people who are meant to represent the electorate, but I digress. John has once again landed a top job within Labour and is now in charge of Jim Murphy’s team. This might not be unexpected but it is deeply worrying. You see John is very much from the right wing of the Labour Party and is nasty with it. While working as director of communications for Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard rumours of organised social media terror campaigns plagued him. When asked about the visa he was on allowing him to work in Australia (it was rumoured he was working in a Visa that was only meant for people with skills that could not be found by Australian Nationals) his reply was “hardly F@£king relevant” He was questioned twice under caution in the cash for honours scandal (no charges were brought) and sent an e-mail to a Labour MSP stating that “If you’ve not been to Sweden before, I think you’ll really like it – it’s the country Scotland would be if it wasn’t narrow, Presbyterian, racist etc. etc” John is without doubt what is wrong with politics as a whole not just the Labour Party. The very idea that anyone would turn to him for sage advice is worrying. Labour has learnt nothing from the referendum and are treating the people of Scotland with contempt. As a Lib Dem voter I feel ashamed of the way my party has acted and what has become of it but it would take some doing before we sunk to the levels of “Scottish” Labour.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:48:00 +0000
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