Crisis? What crisis?

Governments can make unpopular decisions and be rewarded for them but appearing to be incompetent for any length of time is disastrous. In turn politicians who are rich and privileged can thrive with the public, but appearing to have lost touch with how ordinary people live can be fatal.

That’s why the fuel crisis is potentially so dangerous for the government – especially if it turns out that the whole thing was planned as a political attack on the Unite union and Ed Miliband. They need to turn the narrative fast to minimise the damage.

Unpopular political decisions are sometimes necessary and voters know that.  So despite deeply painful cuts and stagnant growth there was no conclusive proof yet that David Cameron and George Osborne were in political trouble. Enough people were giving them the benefit of the doubt because Ed Balls’s claim that cuts are making things worse is no more provable than their claim that cuts are working.

But the story changed in the budget. The facts were undeniable. Rich people (all of those who are not about to buy new houses) were being given a massive income tax cut, while grannies were losing and middle income families were being pushed into the higher tax band. No matter that pensioners had been relatively protected from cuts so far and the 50p rate was something all parties wanted to get rid of eventually. Critics could argue that the cabinet of millionaires were looking out for their own kind.

Bringing forward the announcement on minimum pricing for alcohol looked like a very obvious way of manipulating the news agenda – and it almost worked. But then along came the Sunday Times “Cash for Cameron” sting. The revelation that £250,000 donations to the Conservative Party could get you dinner in the Downing Street flat with David and Sam didn’t just look wrong, it showed the extent to which the lives of the political class and those they mix with are removed from the rest of the country. If these were the people David Cameron has dinner with no wonder they cut the 50p tax, ran the argument.

But just as it is more often the cover-up than the crime which gets people in the end, was the fuel crisis a response to this bad run of luck? Did the government talk up the risk of shortages to put the heat on the Unite union and set a trap for Ed Miliband? Charles Moore of the Telegraph claims to have seen the “private message” being handed down to constituencies from MPs about why stocking up on petrol would be their “Thatcher moment”, comparing the confrontation with Unite’s tanker drivers with the miners strike of 1984.

We’ll probably never know quite why Francis Maude told us to fill jerry cans, or why Ed Davey told us to keep our car petrol tanks two-thirds full. The chances are they just blurted something out in the heat of the moment, under the pressure of an interview. But how many people even knew what a jerry can was? And how many have a garage in which to store one anyway? Mr Maude lives in a vast and lovely home, and few would begrudge that. But forgetting that other people do not have outhouses was a rare slip for an old hand.

Right now the government’s official advice to consumers from DECC is not what the prime minister and cabinet were telling us a few days ago. The woman who decanted petrol in her kitchen from one jerry can to another is in hospital with terrible burns. The queues at the pumps go on, some petrol stations remain closed and the chances of a strike in the near future seem slim. Right now it is not about the economy stupid, it is about competence.

Follow @krishgm on Twitter.