Graduation Gauntlet

Finishing University is scary time for any graduate. Those who toss their mortar board hats into the air as mother ball's her eye's out, are faced with a number of dilemmas.

Who's going to pay my rent now the loan's have ended? When am I going to see all my student pals again?

From my experience as a student the first shock will be waking up at a hour consisting of one digit. The only reason 'scroungers', as my 9-5 friends label students, would have got up any earlier than 10am in the past three years would have been to watch the demi-god of all undergraduates: Jeremy Kyle.

Armed with a saucepan-sized receptacle of heavily sugared tea, students are gripped by the going's on of urban England. How they ridicule Kyle's guests: unemployed, tax evading so-and-so's dependent on government handouts to fund their vices. Just who do they think they are...

A Jezza detox, however, isn't the most daunting prospect facing alumni. It's not he who is causing students to awake late at night (or early morning) in cold, vodka-infused sweats. It's the very real possibility that these people may need to get jobs. That's right, coupled with a no-longer-valid Top Shop discount, students are expected to earn a living through graft, not grants.

But fear not because I am here to help my fellow peers on the road to forty-five years of employment.

Firstly, you need to pick a job. No more lecturers telling you when and where things need to be done, graduates need to search like everybody else. Assuming that they've got that far and not repeated the hallowed "I'll do it tomorrow" mantra, I'm willing to divulge some of my own tips from past experiences on the next stage of the process: the interview.

Below is a conveniently sized printable guide on how to nail the interview for that perfect job...

• DO arrive early - if an employer was looking for lateness they'd hire a menstruation cycle. Arrive promptly and you'll look interested in the position. This leads me to the next point...

• DO NOT use public transport - not only will you be late you will smell like peas and be left severely traumatised because you sat next to a woman with a beard longer than Jesus'

• DO dress appropriately - but think about it. Why dress in Saville Row threads if your applying for a role at Godfather Fish and Chips (they batter anything)? Also, do not dress smarter than your interviewer. This may require prior surveillance (and if so DO NOT get caught) but it's worth not outsmarting the boss.

• DO ask questions - sensible ones that make you sound interested in the job. I like to use the old "where does the company see itself in 5 years?", but as a graduate you probably wont care as you'll probably be looking for a temporary job to fund your travelling trip. Ask it anyway.

• DO NOT go out on a Girls Aloud-esque bender the night before - you will be as off your game as they are off key.

• DO NOT work with children or animals - they are unpredictable and loud. A bit like a gun.

Although not exhaustive, these tips are tested and ones that I pass onto any graduate willing to enter the big wide-world after years of late night debauchery. Failing this, hit snooze, roll over and enroll on a masters degree.

The Right Stuff

I went to watch a rugby tournament at the weekend near to where I live in what has become an annual pilgrimage. Every year friends and I, as well as the other ten thousand spectators, will one minute be watching Fijian crush some English schoolboys and the next be sharing a hot tub with Gene Simmons from Kiss.

All in all it’s a bizarre weekend and not one that I could compare to a current parliamentary hot potato.

In amongst the skull crushing and debauchery my Blackberry alerted me that David Laws, the Chief Secretary of the Treasury, had resigned. This happened just as a bar girl dropped a tray of lagers all over a group of Amy Winehouse's.

Isolated, these two incidents have no relevance to one another. But as Lager-Gate unfolded in front of me I started to draw parallels between the bar urchin and the departing cabinet minister

.

The girl (who, for the sake of legalities I must say looked at least sixteen years old), despite dropping umpteen pints remained calm and dignified. She managed the situation professionally and apologetically with a bemused smile wiped across her pug-face. I came to the conclusion that, despite this expensive misdemeanour, she remained a perfectly capable bargirl regardless of her butterfingers.

The only thing David Laws had splashed that day was his face over the Telegraph's front page. The paper said that Laws had used £40,000 of taxpayers money to rent a residence from his longterm partner,an act which since 2006 has been banned. Despite Laws' pledge to repay the money he gradually made his way through peak-time London traffic to the Treasury and announced his position had become "untenable".

It later emerged that the Telegraph's expose had not only ousted Laws from his Cabinet position - at 17 days, the shortest Cabinet career in British political history - but had also outed the MP as a homosexual: something he had fought his adult life to keep secret to protect those he loved.

But like the bar girl, was Laws, despite his error, not the right person for his job? Was he not, as Tom Wolfe would say, made of the Right Stuff to assist George Osborne tackling our sovereign deficit?

Laws' rise to the forefront of British politics came after earning a double first in economics at Cambridge and making a fortune in the City at JP Morgan and Barclays de Zoete Wedd. He inherited the safe Liberal Democrat seat of Yeovil, succeeding Paddy Ashdown, and increased his majority in the constituency in 2005.

His rise through the Lib Dem party meant he played a key role in the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition talk and landed the coveted Chief Secretary of the Treasury position he later resign from. Laws' vast economic background made him the ideal partner for Osborne but he now finds himself in political exile and I can't help but feel a little sorry for the man.

The Coalition has lost an amiable politician and a highly capable economist, his reputation is one that far exceeds the sleeze suggested by the recent 'scandal'. I'm not pointing the finger at the Telegraph for they have a right to uncover examples of misconduct such as Laws' misappropriation of expenses, I just think that, like the bar girl, Laws should have been give the opportunity to brush himself off and start again.