Ali Salman, Nabeel Rajab and Ibrahim Sharif must be rubbing their hands in glee at this new set of statistics. This is proof of the success of their sit-ins, road blocking and disruptive activity. They have succeeded in sending the Bahraini economy down the toilet.

For all of us who care about Bahrain, on the other hand, this is a tragedy. Particularly as according to the statistics $600m of this is indirect losses; meaning the revenue accruing to small businesses and flowing through the veins of the wider economy benefitting us all. $800m could provide generous salaries for 10,000 Bahrainis; it could build better roads, schools, hospitals. Instead, not only has that money been lost to us, but an unimaginably large amount of money will have also been spent by our leaders in countering the demonstrations, instead of putting this money to good use.

On the 14 February anniversary, many of us breathed a sigh of relief; the protests hadn’t been particularly well attended, they hadn’t achieved their aims of reaching the Pearl Roundabout, and the police performed impressively well in managing these events, without giving the opposition any excuse to talk about repression, injustice and martyrs.

The poster boy for the 14 February demos was very much Nabeel Rajab. It was him who was photographed and quoted my most of the international newspapers and he who had spectacularly declared that he’d drag his young daughter and wife off to the Pearl – apparently in the hope of them all getting assaulted and locked up and thus providing the opposition with further material to grease their propaganda machine with. We can be grateful that our security forces showed restraint in refraining from granting Rajab’s wish.