Emma Harrison (A4E) interview on Ch4 news last night

[bananaistheanswer]

here

Did anyone watch this last night? It was cringeworthy. How she expected to be able to sit there and deny, deny, deny when she had nothing to back up her claims at all is beyond me. And oh the wails of 'bullying' as well. Taking no responsibility for the shambles she found herself in. I have no access to the stats at all, but from the interview, her company found work for 4 out of 100 employees in the 1st year of their contract, when it's supposed to be 5 out of 100 get a job with no intervention from the likes of her company/job centres etc. She said she 'didn't recognise those figures' yet had none to combat them with to prove she was being stitched up. And yet it's still not her fault, and everyone is wrong, and poor her being bullied out of a job while still getting £250K for doing feck all. Not a lot of sympathy from me.

I saw it and it was marvellous car crash telly. Completely desperate and unprepared and panic-stricken. God knows how Krishnan G-M managed to restrain himself from correcting her every time she got his name wrong too (I'd have been tempted to start calling her Emily but that's probably why I don't have a job on c4 news...)

Good wa

Meant to say good, wasn't it? Is she going to have to give any money back for that fab company she's been running 25 years helping people get jobs on the checkout in m&s? Thought not. That would be bullying.

I can't stand her, I can't stand what she did, BUT I think she was set up.
She feels she has been unfairly ousted from A4E and at one point she said 'You asked me here to talk about that', which Krishnan denied. Well, I doubt it's Krishnan himself who invites the guests on, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if the interview was spun to her as a chance to put her side of things re that. Given that she's no longer in charge of the company so no longer has access to all the internal figures she doesn't actually make sense as an interviewee to talk about current results.
Her performance was cringingly useless (all the poor little me stuff) but I found Krishnan really unnecessarily aggressive (which he is not usually).
I think the whole A4E set-up stinks and it's a symptom of a totally corrupt system, but I also think the media and many viewers are absolutely loving having a female face to attach the blame to. The misogyny I've seen in the comments online (not on Mumsnet) leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth.

I heard a Radio 4 programme about her before the scandal, maybe 2 years ago. It was one of those "here's a successful business person, let's get them to talk about their childhood and how they got to be successful" type things.

I swear I came away from listening to that thinking "how on earth has she made all that money doing what she does?" Even from the extremely programme which was a puff piece par excellence, it did not all stack up.

what a daft mare

Clearly she was ruddy lucky to spot the opportunity to make some easy money conning the unemployed and conning the government. I don't feel any sympathy for her - she has a mahoosive stately home in the Peak District that she's spent millions making incredibly luxurious and a v. v. nice lifestyle.

I'd expect a 90% shareholder to have a rudimentary grasp of the figures, and I still can't see how she could claim C4's figures were wrong when she couldn't produce her own...it's a bit of a failure of logic.

Emma clearly came on without any answers. to questions. Daft really.

The government are due to report on her company work plan soon

I had, some years ago, reason to use her company. I was sitting in on one her group courses where unemployed young people were being 'taught' employment and basic skills, such as reading, writing, basic workplace manners etc.
The woman 'teaching' the course was totally useless, i.e. putting a word up on a blackboard and then asking how many words people could make from the initial word. BUT the initial word was spelled incorrectly - after the class I pointed out to her that the word was mis-spelled and her response - 'well they don't know that do they, anyway how do you know the correct spelling !!). She was telling the people on the course to use a dictionary but she did not use one herself as she 'did not need one'
There was a young man on the course with a maths degree who was dyslexic
and she spoke to him as if he was a dog - he did fine at Uni with a 'writer' but struggled in the world of employment due to his written ability.
She would give cigarettes and money for drinks to her favourites and refuse to accept doctors appointment cards etc as proof of needing to leave early, even when they asked her to ring up and check to those she had taken a dislike to.
Their own 'staff' seemed to me to be a set of 'chancers' who could talk the talk but not deliver at the end.

Ha! Thank you for this banana, I'd missed it.

mollymole, Krishnan did invite viewers with any information about A4E to get in touch...

(Contact Channel 4 News)

molly, sounds horribly like Pauline from the League of Gentlemen, but IRL...

I've been interviewed by Krishnan on Ch4 News and he took a completely different angle to the one I'd discussed with the researchers, really threw me. But at least I made him laugh. (Was there as a talking head, not defending wrongdoing like she was.)