I don’t need to go over the sacking of Baillie Gifford from sponsoring the Hay on Wye and Edinburgh Literary Festivals. You can read the sad story here
I hope that Baillie Gifford will have got some positive publicity as well as the unwelcome and unjustified brickbats from Fossil Free Books.
Artists are free to kick-out commercial subsidy but they shouldn’t feel entitled to it being replaced by the tax-payer.
Whether you are Horace or Catullus, Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci or Fossil Free Books, you are going to have to make some commercial compromises.
And it really pisses me off that the literary festivals themselves have caved in to Fossil Free Foods’ silly and petty demands. And if it pisses me off, it is likely that it pisses off many others who have an eye to the problems fossil fuels are causing.
Who is clean enough…?
Our own lives involve us in compromises too. We may end up putting the wrong trash in the wrong bins, we can reach for the car-keys when the bus is on its way. None of us are without sin!
When I bought a round of drinks at the Great Escape with my Barclaycard, I saved 20% – because Barclays funded the Brighton based event. The bloke beside me at the bar gave me one of those looks, I realised at that moment that I was compromising myself – perhaps beyond redemption in his eyes!
But thinking about my Barclaycard now, I wonder whether I really need it to be with Barclays and I realise that the option to scissor it exists. So I’ve scissored it and decided to use an HSBC credit card instead. I just don’t want to be eyeballed one more time for supporting Barclays.
That is my decision, but it is one that I’ve made because of campaigning over the years (remembering that Barclays were sanction busting in South Africa while Nelson Mandela languishes in jail). This is the social impact of ESG and it is why highlighting bad behaviour is both legitimate and helpful (think current Nationwide adverts).
Highlighting or gaslighting?
As far as I am aware, I don’t invest in Baillie Gifford funds, but if I did, I would feel discombobulated by their being booted out by Hay and Edinburgh. That’s gaslighting.
I did invest in Barclays – or at least borrow from them and I had always felt uncomfortable holding that card (transferred from another bank). Highlighting Barclays’ bad behaviour as happened to me in Brighton is different.
I am talking personal decisions, but the organisers of these events have to take decisions too. The Great Escape in Brighton did not back down from promoting Barclays as sponsors and lost a lot of artists by doing so. Maybe better choices were available. The organisers of Hay and Edinburgh literary festivals have never sided with Fossil Free Fuels and it’s disappointing that they did not stand firm.
I felt gaslighted at Brighton and feel that Baillie Gifford are highlighted by the dignified way in which they withdrew from their £1m pa sponsorship deals. In this , there are no easy answers. The arts needs funding, the public can’t be expected to sponsor these niche events, we should be careful who does.