Alan Yau, the restaurateur, may be forgiven for thinking that reports of a slowdown have been greatly exaggerated. Abu Dhabi’s Tasameem group has bought his London restaurants, Hakkasan and Yauatcha, for $60 million (£30.6 million).

The Middle Eastern fund is either taking an audacious bet on an early recovery or, more likely, recognising that this economic gloom is peculiarly polarising. Very painful to those who can’t afford it; utterly irrelevant to those who can afford Yauatcha’s dim sum. The signs of this polarisation are everywhere. Tasameem plans to roll out Hakkasan and Yauatcha worldwide to those whose food must be exquisite and served by beautiful people wearing black. Shares in The Restaurant Group plunged 30 per cent yesterday as its food chains are shunned by those whose credit cards can no longer stretch to being served burgers by pustulent teenagers.

On the high street, retailers face a torrid 12 months, but there is still a market for a Hermès handbag priced at £28,000. House prices are stalling - unless you live in the Central London enclaves or rural idylls favoured by the recession-proof super-rich. The southwest corner of Central London saw prices rise by 1.8 per cent over the past quarter, according to Knight Frank, the estate agent. Meanwhile, Savills said that on the last Friday before Christmas it sold country estates worth £66 million.

Against this backdrop, the Bank of England’s decision on whether to cut interest rates is by no means clear cut – The Times’s shadow Monetary Policy Committee voted 5-4 in favour of holding rates. It must be tempting for Mervyn King, the Bank Governor, and his fellow rate-setters to take account of the yawning gap between the super-rich and the rest of us. If the economy weakens further, anyone with a mortgage, with debt, with a potentially precarious job will be struggling. But Yauatcha will continue to be full to bursting every night and the beautiful waiters will continue to eject diners ordering pudding beyond their two hours’ allotted time.

But combining social engineering with monetary policy setting is dangerous. If excessively savage rate cuts allow inflation to creep further upwards, those who suffer will again be those with mortgages.

Mr King must leave the social engineering to the fiscal policy setters. Gordon Brown must be growing increasingly uncomfortable about Britain’s widening wealth gap. The question is whether he has the means to do anything about it. The Treasury coffers are empty and the silence on the issue is loud. But if you listen hard enough, can you hear the phrase: “Let them eat dim sum!”?

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