The mood in the Tehran baazar on Monday was confused. Some of the grey shutters in the vaulted passageways of the bazaar remained firmly closed, others were open for business while yet more were half open-half closed, perhaps reflecting that many bazaaris – merchants – were in two minds over whether to continue their strike against the government of president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad.

Over the past week merchants in some of the biggest bazaars in Iran have been closed in protest at the imposition of a 3 per cent value added tax. On Sunday Tehran joined the dispute in spite of the fact the government announced late last week that it was to “postpone” imposition of the levy.