In a time of fear, heroes must rise. There’s a gathering storm rattling at the windows, tearing through the family WhatsApp groups. Use your air fryer instead of the oven. Book your summer holiday now to avoid spiralling flight costs. Colin, a caller on LBC, has heard a rumour (the radio phone-in equivalent of “forwarded many times”) that there are abundant oil and gas reserves off the Falkland Islands and wants the government to fund an expedition to go and get them.

Meanwhile, Ed Miliband has been on TikTok, patiently explaining to his 26,800 followers what the government is doing to protect you from the coming war-flavoured price shock. Energy bills are coming down in April. There’s a £50m heating oil fund for poorer households. Fuel duty is being frozen until September. There are unspecified “measures to advance our plans for clean power”. And, of course, the government is “working with our allies to bring this conflict to an end”, which definitely seems to be doing the trick so far.

Naturally, Labour’s cost-of-living tsar, Richard Walker, has been front and centre during the early weeks of this crisis. Much like an actual tsar, the executive chair of Iceland (the supermarket chain, not the country) is a multimillionaire, inherited much of his immense wealth from the family dynasty and enjoys a position of significant political influence despite never having been elected. Nevertheless, Walker has been using his platform to argue that “government needs to listen to business more”, while also warning that the energy price cap proposed by Green party leader Zack Polanski “could lead to disastrous consequences, such as rationing”. So let’s not accuse him of shirking the hard choices.

If there is a common thread to all this, it is the intent to show intent, a focus on focus, in the absence of anything........

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