How the Stephen Lawrence case led to many changes in society

The dawn of 2012 signalled the culmination of 18 years of heartbreak and disappointments for all those involved in the Lawrence case. From the catalogue of failures made by the metropolitan police, a failed private prosecution and a change in the double jeopardy law; two suspects have now found their way behind bars for their involvement in the teenagers murder over 18 years ago.

Who was Stephen Lawrence?
Stephen Lawrence was an 18 year old A-level student from South East London. He was a normal 18 year old, preparing to do his exams, with a part time job, friends and a whole life ahead of him. Whilst walking to a bus stop at about 10.30pm with his close friend Duwayne Brooks, a group of six white males were allegedly heard shouting abuse at Stephen. Duwayne with his back to the gang began to run, catching glimpses of the attackers, he thought he saw his friend being attacked by a metal bar. Urging his friend to run on, Stephen and Duwayne managed to flee before finally Stephen collapsed, bleeding on the floor on the road. On a dark April night in 1993, Stephen died watched by his friend.

The names of the suspects, Gary Dobson, Neil and Jamie Acourt, Luke Knight and David Norris were tipped off to the police by several phone calls and letters weeks after the murder. The police have been criticised from the first day of the murder investigation for ignoring several tip off's, treating key witnesses extremely questionably and generally being lack lustre in their response of this very serious crime. It was two weeks before initial arrests were made and this coincidentally took place after Nelson Mandela made a visit to the murdered teenagers parents, Neville and Doreen.

After other failures, a trail was unable to be launched against any of the suspects due to lack of evidence. In 1994, the Lawrence's decided to launch a private prosecution case  against the suspects, which subsequently acquitted three of the main suspects of this case. They thought this was the end of it the original suspects walking free, getting on with their lives.

It wasn't until  the double jeopardy law was changed - meaning  that an individual could be tried for the same crime twice - and the presentation of new forensic evidence that a re-trial of two of the original suspects Gary Dobson and David Norris could commence. The prosecutions main evidence focused on a tiny fragment of Stephen's blood found on one of the suspects clothing. This lead to the suspects being found guilty of manslaughter.

This case, iconic for many reasons has been a long journey for all involved. For the Lawrence family, it has been painful and arduous and for the police, embarrassing and exposing. It took a failed private prosecution, the London Metropolitan Police being labelled as institutionally racist and a change in the law for a hint of justice to be done. Lets hope that the memory of Stephen is not forgotten, a poor victim of a heinous crime.

So you've graduated ...

You've studied for three years, you spent the weekends of your third year in the library, you didn't go to house parties and you were president of 6 student societies The time is now right for you to receive your prize.  You attend your graduation, your name is called, you receive your badge of honour, your degree certificate. Your hopes for employment are high, a nice management consultancy, with lots of fringe benefits and perhaps a company car. You apply and nothing, you apply some more and still no joy, months pass and you are still unemployed.

 This is the reality which faces many graduates, especially since the financial crisis of 2008. The current labour market is awful. In a recent guardian article, up to 40% fail to get graduate-level work two years after gaining degree. Also a study by Warwick University (2012) found that 10% of the 17,000 surveyed had significant levels of unemployment.

What can you do to avoid being one of these statistics?

• Don't rely on just having a degree it's all about extra curricular, work experience of any kind is better than none, baby sitting, gardening any thing. Get your money's worth out of your tuition fees.

• Voluntary work make sure you get involved in any thing you're interested in at University, college or school. 

• Write a proper CV- there's no good just listing experiences, go to your careers centre, talk to family and friends, look at templates on word. There is no excuse for a poorly written CV.

• Make the most of your experiences, if you have a part time job, get experiences in the areas you want to develop yourself in. If you don't ask, you won't get!

• Only embark in postgraduate study if it is a requirement of your chosen career or you think it will help you in the job market. Do not rely on postgraduate degrees as a 'get out of jail free card'

I hope these tips will help you in your future job search

How to deal with annoying co workers

There's always at least that one person at work who drives you mad, the way they eat/walk/talk/breathe/express them selves is enough to make you go 'ahhh shuuttt uppp'. From the office know it all, to the person who is always telling you their life story and how unfair things are. I remember one organisation where I was temping at had a lady who was so unfriendly, I thought I had done something wrong to her, on closer investigation I found out that she was just a miserable so and so, I felt better. I will attempt to give some pointers as to how to deal with these creatures.

• Ignore them? My mum always told me to ignore people if they annoyed me, to be honest this only works sometimes, but the individual/individuals in questions are some times so irritating that resulting in screaming repeatedly is the only option.
• Humour them- 'yes, oh really, oh that's sad' these listening sounds make is seem like you're listening when you aren't, leaving you free to get on with something more important or interesting whilst you are not listening to their droning voice.
• Tell them that they are boring weirdos- This is the extreme solution, shouting, ranting and raving is probably not the best idea especially in view of your other colleagues so use this one as a last resort.
• Trump them with your own problems/achievements/woes- doing this I find a bit funny, it can sometimes scare the person into submission as your problems intimidate them. 
• Run away and avoid- this is the cowards way out but it works, especially if you don't work closely to the person in question.

So these are a few tips on how to deal with the strange work place characters. 

Gordon Behind Bars

Gordon Ramsey has tried to do a Jaime Oliver. What I mean is that Jamie Oliver, renowned celebrity chef and social entrepreneur began taking "down and out, no chef training, NEETs" and trained them to work in his "15" restaurants. Now there are several all over London. Gordon Ramsey's quest was to use the thousands of men who have been locked up in the UKs over crowded prisons to work in prison run kitchen's. His aim was to get the prisoners to learn the skills, discipline and rigidity of working in a kitchen. Many of the original 12 inmates had never held down a legal job, one of routine and formalised rules; many were professional criminals, drug dealers, burglars and heroin addicts. Some of the inevitable happened, 3 inmates dropped out or were chucked off the course, there were fights arguments and tantrums. However, the rehabilitation exercise worked, Gordon managed to secure funding, he found a distributor of his lemon treacle slices and a captive work force.

This show made me and others think of the point of prisons, yes they are punishments for people who have broken the law, but could they also be for rehabilitation and up-skilling those who have done wrong? On a social level it may make them appreciate the error of their ways, it may make them change their ways, or it may make little noticeable difference. On an economic level the prisoners are able to pay their way.

What this post is trying to say is that due to the massive over crowding in prisons and the current economic down turn; encouraging prisoners to work and not be such a drain on the public purse should be encouraged. Giving prisoners skills, motivation and work experience to enable them to navigate through society.

Education reforms

In the last few weeks there have been calls for the reform of UK secondary school exams such as GCSEs and A levels. This kind of rhetoric I think is dangerous and misleading, it suggests that the current exams are not fit for purpose, portraying the young as breezing through exams, A*'s all round, without knowing simple spellings or mathematics. Yes in some, this is a problem, basic knowledge and skills are not being learnt or taught, but I don't agree that the whole education system is getting easier.

The perception that everybody is doing well in education is a myth, the pass rate last year for GCSE's A*-C grades was 69.8% which may be due to students being able to take some GSCE exams in a modular fashion as early as age 14. If everyone was indeed doing well, the pass rate would be 100%... This increase in the pass rate should be celebrated, that our youth have a interest in learning. The addition of coursework at GSCE and A level I think makes the qualifications more ecologically valid, after all in real life test conditions are rare, you are often given the ability to be constantly assessed in the work place through projects, training and employee set goals.

There are types of knowledge that do need to be focused on to maintain the UK education system such as: an emphasis on grammar in English, basic everyday maths and practical knowledge in the sciences, but on the whole the education system is not a crumbling wreck.  It is still well respected all over the world churning out world class graduates and attracting students from abroad. However, to maintain this, reforms are inevitable, but going back to O level style GCEs and the CSE system I think would be taking a step back, and the scrapping of the national curriculum would be less than helpful. Criticising the education system undermines the thousands of hard-working teachers and students who are under increasing pressure to perform. Those of you that think these exams are easy, I urge to take your GCSEs again and see how easy they are.

How to survive an Interview

Recently, I have been asked by a few friends how they should prepare for an interview and what they should expect. This post will hopefully enlighten you and make you aware of what employers look for in a candidate. As a disclaimer I am not an expert, however i've learnt a thing or two about interviews in my time. A lot of this information may seem common sense, but you'd be surprised at how some people behave under pressure.

Punctuality- Please please DO NOT be late. This for me is unforgiveable. I don't think i've ever been late for an interview. Leave an hour either end at least for any emergency situations that may arise, e.g. car breaking down, getting lost, missing the bus, stain on shirt etc. Sods law does apply often on interview day so make sure you make contingency plans. Some employees will be sympathetic for a genuine reason, but the majority will have no problems in forgetting all about you if you are late.

Appearance - Dress neatly, non offensive and generic. For most jobs you are interviewing for a nice suit for guys will do, and girls, please don't wear any thing uncomfortable, tight or too short. Someone once told me, dress for the job you want to get, not for the job you have. In other words, power dress, not 80s shoulder pads power dress, but dress with confidence.

Ask Questions- In many interviews I have had, they often leave time at the end and ask you if you have any questions for them. Please ask questions, one will be enough, try not to ask about too much money, ask about training for the job that you have applied for, organisational culture of the organisation or even something about how the recession has affected their productivity. It makes you appear to be interested in the company and also showed that you researched the company.

Research the company!!- Doing this makes you look like you care about where you may work, it appears as though you want to spend time and include yourself in the organisation. This may or may not be true, however, its all about saying the right things. So do a google search on the company, find out who the chief executive is, read up on their company mission statement,  values and aims. Believe me, this will make you look worth hiring.

Try not to worry about nerves- Lastly, everyone gets nervous, don't worry about them. Try practising common  interview questions with an understanding friend, or alone and try not to develop a nervous twitch.

My voting rant

This afternoon I received a phone call from a nice gentleman who was conducting a telephone questionnaire last weeks voting for the UK local elections. According to statistics, just over a third of the electorate voted in 3rd May's 2012 local election. A third! I was actually annoyed and appalled when I heard this statistic. Some people really enjoy the fact that the UK is meant to be a fair and free country, however when it comes to exercising this right, people become apathetic. Here are some of the reasons I have heard for people who do not vote:

• "Voting won't make any difference" - what I think doesn't matter. This is a popular reason for people not engaging with the political system. But during the London 2012 mayoral elections the votes ran very closely between the two main candidates. The number of votes which declared Boris Johnson the mayor was extremely marginal a mere 3%. This shows that individual votes do count.  

• "There's no choice between the main political parties, they are all the same.  Yes I agree with the view that the three main UK political parties do appear to be similar, especially with the leaders of the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats all having the same hair colour. However, there are differences in policies election promises. Do your research, find out what separates them? Vote for other parties if your beliefs dont align with the main parties, it's your responsibility to. Also if the main parties are not giving you what you want, get involved in trying to change something that really matters to you by becoming part of a local politics or community initiatives.   
• "I don't really care"- So, yes this is also true, some people don't care. They don't care about how much tax they have to pay, they don't care how many people are unemployed, they don't care if they can go to university without getting a loan and they don't care how often their local streets are cleaned. So if this is the actual case, never vote; but in the same vein, never complain about any of the things that are listed above.

• I'm too busy. Some people are busy, like lawyers, parents, doctors and nurses. However, the act of voting takes very little time, polling stations are conveniently placed in areas where people can access them easily. My polling station for example is located a mere two minute walk away. The act itself took me less than five minutes from start to finish.

• The voting system is unfair. I won't go in to much detail but some people believe that the "first past the post" voting system which is used in UK general and local elections isn't representative enough. Liberal democrats election promise was to do away with exactly this, and a referendum was called on the voting system. The findings were that most people wanted to stay with the current voting system and not the alternative voting system, or proportional representation. A form of proportional representation was used in the 2012 London Mayoral election. 

So what I am trying to say is that voting is a duty which should be carried out by every one who can. People are dying for their right to vote as we speak. Therefore, I see no point in wasting it, use it as best as you can.