Buoyed by the strength of oil prices, the United Arab Emirates is a rapidly advancing actor on the world stage. The sale of Manchester City Football Club to an investment group backed by the Abu Dhabi Royal Family is an indication of the international cultural, as well as economic, significance of the region’s wealth.

The UAE’s domestic attractions too are being rapidly developed, and marketed to international business travellers. Dubai in particular is the focus of a huge building programme, amounting to more than $300 billion, in the next decade.

Characterised by wealth, public health and spectacular skyscrapers, Dubai is identified (by its publicists) as the cosmopolitan Garden of Eden.

Yet beneath its bright carapace of sunshine, sports and PR, Dubai is not quite what you expect. Michelle Palmer, the British woman on trial at the Dubai Court of First Instance for allegedly having sex on a beach, has smuggled to The Times the first account of her misadventures (see page 5). This bears no relation to the official spin of pretrial accounts. But she has already been sacked from her job, and faces six years in jail.

The most fundamental moral of this episode is to look at earthly paradises through narrowed eyes. Ms Palmer’s case is not unique. She is among several hundred expatriates who have been arrested for violating “Emirati values”. The charges range from indecent standards of dress to alcohol and drug offences.

Modernity takes many forms. Development may easily coexist with conservative norms. Dubai is an emerging force in finance, commerce, sport and tourism. Its juridical standards and cultural mores are part of that phenomenon.