David Sharrock writes from Madrid on Iberian and Maghreb issues. He was a Times staffer in Madrid from 2002 and thereafter Dublin until 2010. He was previously The Guardian's Middle East correspondent. He is the co-author of the bestselling book Man of War, Man of Peace: The Unauthorised Biography of Gerry Adams. He covered both Gulf wars for both papers. In more recent years he was a European Commission spokesman, worked in South Sudan and New York for the United Nations and latterly moved to Washington DC, where he was a senior communications adviser for the World Bank, before joining the International Monetary Fund.