If you’ve done a degree

In Economics, Psychology

Or Business Management,

Mention Abraham Maslow

And eyes will roll or glaze over.

All too familiar territory:

Done that.

Been there.

Bought the proverbial ‘T’ shirt.

The base of the pyramid long forgotten

As we’re all reaching for the stratosphere,

Hunting the Higher Needs and ultimately

The highest: ‘Self-Actualisation’.

[I’ve often wondered about that –

The idea that the apex

Is individual not collective].

.

BBC News and the ‘Today Programme’

[Today obviously!]

And two articles grabbed my attention:

 .

The one suggesting that in some places

Money-grabbing, British landlords

Are taking unfair advantage of market conditions:

[Putting rents up dramatically

In the face of shortage of supply

As a result of the government’s

Policy of ‘Right to Buy’,

Such that some tenants are having to pay

A good 2/3 of their total incomes on rent!]

.

The other, an independent, watchdog body

Warning that this winter

Significant numbers of the most vulnerable

Will have to make the starkest of choices:

[To paraphrase Hamlet

With a good dose of poetic license]

‘To heat or to eat – that is their Question’.

.

We’re back to the most basic of basics:

To the beaten-earth floor of the pyramid.

The primordial prerequisite.

Survival.

Food and warmth.

Neither are optional or interchangeable.

A case of keeping body and soul together.

.

They say the measure of a people

Is its willingness to care

For those too weak or too poor

To care for themselves.

Too cold and too under-nourished

Is neither acceptable nor justifiable

In any sane, civilised society

In this day and age.

But that depends upon two things:

A sense of compassion not pity

And a widely-held willingness

To selflessly share.

.

Do we still possess these in measure enough?

….

We’ll see this winter.

.