State regulators, he reminded us, stand ready to clamp down on any ‘price gouging’ at the till or the pump. ‘There has been no significant evidence of so-called price gouging’, he writes, before proceeding to warn companies against doing precisely that. ‘Price gouging’ has become a popular phrase on the left as it pits company against consumer: the former exploiting national crises to the detriment of the latter. Aldi and Lidl have spent the past decade forcing incumbents into ever more aggressive price competition, allowing consumers to compare and contrast price differentiation with a few taps on a smartphone screen. During previous energy shocks, if there had been an attempt to suppress fuel prices, consumers would have likely experienced long queues or, worse, closed forecourts.