What do we know about fuel prices? We know that oil companies have managed to avoid going bust. In fact, they may be doing quite nicely. We know also that the Opec ring has protected itself, and then some, against a weak dollar. We know further that hedge funds have piled into the energy futures markets to the tune of $260bn, and enjoyed some handy rewards.

Then we know that governments, especially those with a bit of off-shore oil, can reap certain benefits from consumer and producer alike when the spot price for a barrel tops $135. Enterprises, their investors, sovereign funds, speculators and governments are surviving without pain. So why all the fuss? Who is hurting?

That would be you. After all, another thing we know about oil, and therefore food, is that an argument is going on behind the scenes about those supposedly inviolable laws of supply and demand. Some heretics suggest that there is no global shortage of the black stuff; that all the talk of insatiable demand from the Far East, and all the chatter about a Saudi inability to provide, may be masking a less palatable reality.

It could be, some contend, that production is currently above the world's needs by a comfortable margin. Still the spot price more than doubles within a year. Environmentalists regard this as an overdue antidote to our gluttony. Those who have seen the cost of heating a home rise by 38% in a matter of months might be less philosophical. So who pays? Find yourself a copy of Das Kapital.

On the other hand, an old expression from European history might suffice. They used to call it tax-farming. In pre-revolutionary France, for an example, a decent bribe would win you the right to gather revenue from any sort of enterprise. Absurd taxes created absurd profits, for some. To put it in my economically-illiterate manner: am I being taxed by a hedge fund when I turn on the heating?

Tush, such a banality. It also overlooks the other thing we know about fuel: there is nothing the government can do about it, or about any of those strange things called "global phenomena". Stuff happens. God's little wilful acts have nothing on a free market that does no more than "respond". All those British truckers, those terrified pensioners, those French fishermen or American guzzlers have failed to keep abreast of economic realities. Such is the wisdom we receive.

It remains the case, nevertheless, that one consequence of an extraordinary global panic has been extraordinary profits. As the First Minister would tell you, what with his hopes, this is the only oil-producing statelet on the planet lacking the ability to cash in, but that is, I think, our problem. Fuel and its costs are not yet the sole reason for a constitutional debate. They fall instead to the government we have, not the government we might (or might not) prefer.

Gordon Brown and his squad are "listening". If you believe what you hear, this can sometimes result in the Prime Minister picking up the phone to listen even harder to unsuspecting complainants. Mercifully, I'm not in the directory. But I do see the London administration attempting to aid those who are being hurt most by the oil scams. These are real people who find themselves lumped together as "the less well-off". Still, if the need is actual - and it is - why quibble?

The government says that 2.5 million Britons are in fuel poverty. This means, by the official definition, that up to 10% of household income goes to pay for energy. Ofgem, the regulator, has therefore proposed measures to "help those most in need" by persuading providers - that would be those not going broke - to get the most vulnerable on to cheaper tariffs. Some data protection laws might be sacrificed, and the energy companies might - I'd wait for proof, personally - lose £225m.

Help the Aged, among others, says this is nowhere near enough. I suspect the charity is correct. I also know, for it is no secret, that VAT, fuel duty and company taxation is giving the government a significant oil windfall. I know further that new Labour is displaying two of its vices simultaneously: it will not apply windfall taxation to any of those making thumping returns from the "energy crisis", but it will, yet again, apply means-testing to those in need.

I can't be as old as this makes me sound: does no-one in the people's party remember the means-test man, and why that figure was so despised, by so many? Mr Brown's party, as once constituted, had long and hard debates about equity and public benefits, about rights rather than duties. In the hysteria over targets and what Tony Blair called "reform", simple things were forgotten. What is the difference - don't tell me, I'll use all my fingers - between 9.9%, 10%, and 10.1% of a household's income? For some, it will matter.

We saw this non-think at work over the 10% income tax band debacle. Suddenly, £2.7bn was produced (thank you, big oil) to "compensate" those who had been robbed. It becomes an issue of language. How do you compensate people with their own (borrowed) money? And how do you "assist" those in fuel poverty when their own government is profiteering in the trade?

I doubt that the Tories, or anyone else, would behave differently. That is not the issue. Instead, it becomes a matter of intellectual thoroughness. Do you propose seriously to aid those in poverty just by persuading certain companies to behave with a touch more decency, then by applying a means test, then by reserving the right to decide what is, and is not, poverty? As logic goes, each of those assumptions is semi-detached, brutal and self-defeating.

I don't expect Mr Brown to take issue with trans-national capitalism any more than I expect George Bush, the oil man, to wring more than 400,000 extra barrels a day from his old friends, the Saudis. I also do not expect people to care much about the environment when their bills are mounting. But even I retain the half-hearted hope that a British government can speak, if only now and then, for its people.

Save the planet, by all means. I don't have an alternative address. But remind yourself of remarks made at the head of this piece. A few individuals are making a great deal of money. Many individuals are paying a great deal of money for house, home, body, soul and the usual things. This is not a natural disaster. But then to say that a government can do "nothing" other than test the means of those with precious few means is an odd discourse in a democracy.

Many people are working hard to help us towards energy efficiency. Jack McConnell's government was proud, despite difficulties (which continue) to bring central heating to our older people. Such efforts are never without cost. But as anyone who has ever paid a bill will known, only a handful of questions are important.

Who's paying? Who's charging? And does my elected government promise that the transaction is fair? Two out three is not, these days, good enough.