While recent media reports have claimed that some poor Britons may have to choose between heating and food this winter, the wads of ex-City lawyers now based in the air-conditioned Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC) suffered their own bout of credit crunch-fuelled hunger last week.

It has emerged that with Prime Minister Gordon Brown due to visit the premises as part of his tour of the Middle East to raise funds for the International Monetary Fund, the ‘sandwich guy’ that normally delivers the lunch goods to busy DIFC-based lawyers’ desks was not allowed into the building for security reasons.