John McTernan (born in 1959, London) is a British Labour member, political strategist and commentator. He is currently a columnist for The Scotsman and blogs for the Daily Telegraph.
He was Chief Librarian of the Labour Party from 1987 to 1992.
In 2001, he was Head of Policy at the Scottish Executive when Scottish Labour were in power.
He was a columnist and editorial writer for the Scotland on Sunday newspaper from 2002 to 2004.
From 2004-2005 he was a senior policy adviser in Tony Blair's Prime Minister's Office No. 10 Policy Unit responsible for housing and regeneration.
He was Political Secretary/Director of Political Operations at 10 Downing Street for Tony Blair[1] from 2005–2007, where he provided political management and support for the development of the government's political strategy.
In 2007 McTernan was seconded to the Scottish Labour Party to run its campaign for the May Scottish Parliament general election.[2][3][4] The Scottish Labour Party lost power.
In 2007 he worked on the November 2007 Australian Labor Party general election campaign.[1]
He was special adviser to Jim Murphy MP, the Secretary of State for Scotland from 2007 until May 2010.
In September 2011, he was appointed as communications director to Austrialian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.[5]