EVEN at the height of the Arab spring the Saudi regime had few domestic opponents. At their best they mustered a few hundred protesters to gather for a “day of rage” in March 2011 outside the interior ministry demanding a freely elected parliament and a constitutional monarchy. Many of its organisers were later jailed; but fear is only part of the reason for absence of protest. In a kingdom which acts like a (heavily armed) charity doling out cradle-to-coffin welfare, few see a reason to upset the felafel stand. Two-thirds of Saudi Arabia’s 21m citizens are employed by the government and expect annual pay rises whether working or not.

Confronted with vast deficits after the oil price collapsed in 2014, the king’s favoured son, Muhammad bin Salman (pictured centre), set out to change all that. The 31-year-old, who serves as deputy crown prince, defence minister and head of the committee that runs the economy, is widely considered to be Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, given the great age (81) of his father. His ministers called civil servants lazy and not only unveiled a transformation plan with austerity measures, but actually began implementing them. The slashing of housing, vacation and sickness allowances last September reduced some salaries by a third. Utility bills rose as subsidies fell.

This was not popular. If they had to tighten their belts, many muttered, why shouldn’t the prince himself, who reportedly paid half a billion dollars for a yacht in 2015? Activists on social media compared him to Gamal Mubarak, the ravenous son of the deposed Egyptian president. The prince’s primacy, already dented by the bloody mess that his intervention in next-door Yemen’s war has become, seemed in danger of being weakened.

On April 22nd the government performed a screeching U-turn, restoring most of the perks and bonuses enjoyed by all those government employees. By reducing the grumbling, Prince Muhammad may hope to regain the middle-class support he needs to bolster his position against opposition from senior princes who would rather that the king’s nephew and crown prince, Muhammad bin Nayaf, succeeds Salman when the time comes.