Adnan Al-Daini

My wife and I arrived at Paddington railway station on Sunday lunchtime after a wet cold weekend in London. We were at the head of the queue entering the platform to board the train to Exeter. As I walked along the platform I counted three first class carriages out of...

Politicians are completely out of touch with ordinary citizens regarding taxpayer funding of political parties. People are disgusted with the influence exercised by an unscrupulous rich elite, that is able to bend politicians and policies to its will using its wealth.

Powerful corporations and lobbying groups reinforce the stranglehold...

Asylum seekers are those, in the main, who are escaping war and/or have stood up to tyranny and injustice from their rulers. They are courageous people that need to be admired, not vilified.

Additionally, they are those who have the resourcefulness to escape their environment, overcoming in many cases...

"They can't lie straight in bed, they say one thing and mean another and they just answer a question with a question". So said a voter in Bradford West in answer to a question as to whether the three main parties Labour, Conservative and Lib Dems have lost...

How do we assess the role of the Lib-Dems in the coalition? The Liberal Democrats are now making a sustained effort to tell us that the actions of this ideologically driven Conservative government are being moderated by their influence. Their argument seems to be - if it were not for...

Why is it so difficult for politicians to change their minds? Why is a U-turn considered such a no- no for them? Margaret Thatcher who embraced and rejoiced in the title "the iron lady" famously remarked in 1980: "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for...

Market fundamentalism is to be given free reign; never mind that it was the erroneous notion "the market knows best" that brought us the economic depression engulfing western societies.

Austerity programmes and cuts are causing distress, hardship and misery to the majority of people in the west. This same...

The mantra of growth as a cure to the economic malaise that is engulfing Europe and the US is repeated ad nauseam by economists and political pundits. My training is in engineering science, not economics, so let us not be encumbered by economic dogma or theory. Let us go back...

Ruthless Arab dictators have terrified the people around them to the point of total sycophancy, where praise and subservience to the "dear" leader are the only words the despot hears; this renders them incapable of objectively and logically examining a problem. Their delusions of grandeur have fossilised their brains, making...

The optimism generated by the Arab spring is now giving way to anxieties about where these changes are taking Arab societies. The idealism of the young in their millions for a dignified life where human rights are respected, where the rulers serve the people instead of enslaving them, is being...

Long ago in the late fifties, in Iraq, as an 11 year old boy, I developed osteomyelitis after a fall from a bicycle. My poor parents had to borrow the money to pay for many doctors' visits before the correct diagnosis was made. They then needed to borrow more money...

In the daily carnage of today's Iraq, with bombs and shootings targeting the innocent, one is forgiven for feeling despair at the sheer wickedness and inhumanity of these deeds. In the midst of the misery and carnage, however, an act of heroism and sacrifice that shows the true face of...

Edmund Burke, the Irish political philosopher, wrote: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." Or if one prefers the popular version: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good...

The sectarian and ethnic divisions among Iraqi politicians have now become so deep that trust across the sectarian and ethnic schisms, Shia, Sunni, Kurdish, is now practically non-existent. Any action or statement by any politician, whether well-intentioned or not, is viewed through this destructive prism. Where do we go from...

As a 17-year-old, in 1962, I was one of a group of about 10 Iraqi students doing A levels in a college in the UK. The group included three Christians, one Kurd (Muslim) and the rest were also Muslims. Please do not ask me how many of the Muslims were...

Could one do the right thing for the wrong reasons? Yes. Does it matter that it is for the wrong reasons? It does, if it shows a mindset from which other actions may follow that are wrong, uninformed and damaging. David Cameron sought, but did not get, a

"It doesn't really matter if it's Labour or Conservative because the people behind the scenes are always the same..." said a 23 year-old man from Liverpool, who took part in the UK (August 2011) riots. The quote is from a report "Reading the Riots" commissioned by the Guardian...

George Osborne, the British Chancellor's autumn statement may be many things, but fair and just it is not. Some of the poorest members of our society, public workers, who do valuable work that distinguishes a caring society from one that is not, are to carry a heavy load for dire...

The £1m Queen Elizabeth Engineering prize " is to be awarded for exceptional advances in Engineering". This prize "was officially launched at London's Science museum.", so said a BBC report.

There you have it; the above sentence carries within it why engineering has an image problem...

"If the Euro fails, then Europe fails"- so said Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. This is what we have been hearing from pundits and experts for weeks now. Predictions of economic Armageddon if the eurozone breaks up have been aired ad nauseam by politicians and experts. Commentators and...