Which side were you on in the great Authors vs Baillie Gifford stushie of 2023? Which is to say, where do you stand now on corporate sponsorship of the arts where the companies concerned have links to the fossil fuel or weapons industries, for example, or have interests in contested regions such as the West Bank?

A quick recap, then a look at why this matters. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg pulled out of an appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) in 2023 on account of its long-standing relationship with Edinburgh-based investment firm Baillie Gifford. She viewed this hook-up as an example of ‘green-washing’ by a firm gaining from investments in companies whose interests were inimical to her beliefs.

“Green-washing efforts by the fossil fuel industry, including sponsorship of cultural events, allow them to keep the social license to continue operating,” she said in a statement. “I cannot and do not want to be associated with events that accept this kind of sponsorship.”

Following Ms Thunberg’s withdrawal, and on the eve of the festival, over 50 authors published an open letter calling on the EIBF to end its relationship with Baillie Gifford. In May 2024, the EIBF announced it was doing just that. The Hay Festival, also sponsored by Baillie Gifford, announced the same decision a week earlier.

Full disclosure: I was entirely on the side of the authors in the 2023 row and had little time or patience for the arguments of those who opposed them.

Certainly not the cultural warriors of the right, who viewed the campaign as a chance to pour scorn on the ‘wokerati’ – but not even those festival directors and high-placed arts practitioners in the invidious position of having to defend tie-ins with companies such as Baillie Gifford. Grow up, they said, the arts wouldn’t exist in their current form without this sort of corporate sponsorship. Really? I’m not so sure. Anyway, if you’re right would that be such a bad thing?

Fast forward another year and we have just had the launch of the 2025 EIBF. In the absence of Baillie Gifford as a corporate sponsor (a relationship which was always and self-evidently transactional in nature) we now have (cue drum roll) Sir Ian Rankin.

As revealed in

© Herald Scotland