Matt Bevan

The former emir made the grave mistake of going on holiday to Iran.

And while he was away, his cousin Khalifa changed the locks and bingo bango, he became the new emir.

Now, why pull a sneaky coup to take charge of a barren peninsula populated by fishermen?

Well,

They'd found something under their feet.

Its oil reserves are not large by the standards of its bigger neighbours, but it has got gas to exploit for the next 500 years.

So, 500 years worth of gas and a very tiny population.

The Altanis decided to use that gas to make their population incredibly rich.

Today Qatari nationals are provided with a free home for every family, a free car.

They pay no taxes, no rent, no utility charges, no telephone bills.

Education for Qatari nationals is free, whether it's at home or at the most exclusive and expensive college abroad.

Health care is unlimited.

Qataris can fly to any specialist anywhere in the world, and the government will pick up the airfares, the doctor's bill, and the family's luxury hotel bill for as long as they're abroad.

Now, this sounds like an incredibly sweet deal.

And if you were one of the 40,000 odd Qataris, it really was.

Work was pretty much optional.

We encountered an elderly and delightful man working as an occasional government car driver.

Although he was a dollar millionaire,

But this decadent lifestyle had a couple of pretty dark clouds hanging over it.

For one thing, because Qataris didn't really need to work, they imported basically their entire labour force.