Suddenly, the Maldivians are in the news. Earlier this year, they locked up their first democratically elected president, and just recently they declared a state of emergency. It never used to be like this. The Maldives was just a place you saw in brochures, looking expensively turquoise.

It has a population no bigger than Barnet (350,000), and 99 per cent of the country is covered in water.