The construction of crises is a key analytical and political issue. This paper examines what is at stake in the processes and practices of construction, responding to the arguments made in Andrew Gamble's "The spectres at the feast" (2009). We suggest that there are three areas of critical concern: first, that too little attention has been given to the ways in which political and popular accounts of crisis have been (and are being) articulated; second, that analyses of the present conjuncture need to be attentive to the question of how many crises are folded into the present; and third, that studying crisis demands a critical reflection on both the politics and economy that are combined in political economy.