The terrible consequences of the Hay Festival grandstanding

Just three weeks ago, I wrote about Hay Festival sacking their main sponsor Baillie Gifford after pressure from the campaign group Fossil Free Books, which claimed the investment fund was profiting from the destruction of the planet and ‘genocide’ in Gaza. Whatever their merits of these charges (not much, as it happens), I argued, the sacking of a literary festival’s sponsor would do great harm to the festival and make no impact whatsoever on the fossil fuel industry or the lives of people in Gaza. Worse, I worried, would be if the campaigners scented blood and others followed suit. This could be a disaster for the arts in this country.

In the three weeks since I last wrote about this, the dominoes have gone down faster than I had dared to imagine. Baillie Gifford has now entirely withdrawn from funding literary festivals; and on Saturday it was reported that Barclays Bank (targeted by Bands Boycott Barclays over investments in the defence sector) has smartly kiboshed its involvement in the Latitude, Download and Isle of Wight Festivals.