David J Black

Let us park Ms Rooney in a lay-by for the moment, and focus on the man in the shadows. A dyed-in-the-wool Republican, one time Rubio-supporting Trump sceptic Paul Elliott Singer has made several contributions to Mr Trump himself, with others going to the Republican National Committee, not to mention several millions to Republican ‘super PACs’ the Senate and Congressional Leadership funds. He now joins billionaires Musk and Zuckerberg as a Trump cheerleader.

“He was a very strong opponent and now he’s a very strong ally and I appreciate that” the ex and future president announced to a press conference in February 2024. Singer is notoriously circumspect, but few doubt that his support was conditional on extracting concessions to do with future US policy in Israel, not to mention that other Singer cause - tax breaks for the super rich.

He has contributed millions to Washington lobby group The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and been a major donor to conservative think-tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which opposed John Kerry’s Iran nuclear deal, and pursues a fiercely pro-Israeli government line. Trustees of the Tikvah Fund (which runs programmes to build “a new generation” of committed Zionists) includes Merrill Lynch’s former head of global resources, Ms Terry Kassel, also head of strategic human resources at Elliott Management, chairman of the board of Startup Central of Tel Aviv, director of the Paul E Singer Foundation, and board member of Onward Israel.

Tikvah’s critics included liberal Jewish investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, who claimed it was staffed from top to bottom with “Israeli diehards” and thus a logical sponsor of the Krauthammer Fellowship which, he writes, was set up by Singer in 2019 to “award 15 positions annually to aspiring writers, journalists, scholars, and policy analysts under the age of 35 - provide them with ‘editorial mentorship’ and help [with] placing their work”.

In a 2024 Counterpunch article – How a Hedge Fund Manager and Right-Wing Donor is Financing an Israeli Influence Op Masquerading as a Journalism Project – Mr Silverstein elaborated on Mr Singer’s named dedicatee, the late Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist-turned-commentator who abhorred liberal Jews and reportedly persuaded George W Bush to start the Iraq War on the basis of fake information, and whose relationship with Bibi Netanyahu was described as “like brothers” by the Israeli prime minister himself.

Aided by bestsellers Normal People and Beautiful World, Waterstones’ profits rose by 344 per cent between 2021 and 2023, and it looks like it will be fattened up for the stock market. Ignorance being no defence in law, it is a shame that Ms Rooney didn’t fact check her book festival-wrecking activities given that she herself is a revenue-churning asset within Mr Singer’s oligopolistic bookish universe. In 2019 it seemed Waterstones’ profits weren’t so much going to sales staff, who were then being paid below the living wage, as to top directors, with CEO James Daunt reportedly receiving £1.6m, plus a bonus of £1.2m.

Patently, the beneficiary of the attack on Baillie Gifford’s sponsorship of book festivals will be Waterstones and its Elliott stablemates. Since the ultimate owner of that particular conglomerate is Elliott Investment, a global nexus with strong ties to the fossil fuel industry whose founder is a sworn supporter of the Israeli right, it is beyond ironic that the causes espoused by the raucous disruptors of book festivals involve opposition to fossil fuels and the war in Palestine.

What an ace hit for vulture capitalist Paul Elliott Singer! The term ‘useful idiots’, Lenin’s alleged term for credulous liberal admirers of Soviet Communism sums up those who exited the Edinburgh Book Festival chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Baillie Gifford’s got to go”. It was scant mitigation that the Baillie Gifford award for that year had gone to John Vaillant’s Fire Weather. A true story from a hotter world, an uncanny foretaste of the disaster of Pacific Palisades. That Baillie Gifford’s fossil fuel holdings were a diminishing two per cent against an industry average of 11 per cent was immaterial to these hectoring scribes, around 50 of whom signed a headline-grabbing letter by ad-hoc collective Fossil Free Books (FFB) which threatened that if Baillie Gifford didn’t stop investing in fossil fuel-linked businesses Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) would face disruption. Numbers increased as others joined in, including 2022 Bailie Gifford prize winner Katherine Rundell who, despite her privilege (quote: “All Souls College has several butlers”) never quite returned her £50,000 prize.

The following year around 70 Scottish writers, sensing that livelihoods were at risk, many piqued by an attack largely from beyond Scotland, signed a letter condemning the “strategy of protest which results in EIBF being left without a principal sponsor - this would be a Pyrrhic victory, and merely deprive writers and activists of platform and influence”. Some, like Scottish Makar Jackie Kay, who had signed the original FFB manifesto, was clearly suffering from buyers’ remorse. Outrun author Amy Liptrot privately admitted to the same sentiment when your scrivener had a word with her after her stint in the Edinburgh Book Festival’s “Waterstones signing tent”.

At Hay FFB further ordered that Baillie Gifford divest “from companies that profit from Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide” since “solidarity with Palestine and climate justice are inextricably linked”. One imagines that Mr Singer, a champion of right wing Israeli causes and a fossil fuel profiteer, might have been miffed. On the other hand there was a glorious commercial upside. If sponsors, actual and potential, of Britain’s book festivals are scared off, then the collapse of such events will leave the field clear for Waterstones, and profits returned to Elliotts would soar. Doubtless there are a few conspiracy theorists out there who actually believe the entire book festival wrecking farrago was subtly manipulated by some Waterstones-Elliott cabal with the objective of removing a rival, but that would be a silly idea, wouldn’t it?

Ms Rooney is not alone in missing key points. When environmentalist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot was promoting his book The Invisible Doctrine in Waterstones Bristol, he was also signing the joint letter which would lead directly to Baillie Gifford cancelling its sponsorship of all UK book festivals. This was just before the opening of the Hay Festival at which he had a promo for his book, its subtitle being The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life). What a pity one of his case studies hadn’t focussed on the pernicious influence of Paul Elliott Singer and the global bookshop interests of Elliott Investment Management LP. As a manifestation par excellence of Gramsci’s cultural hegemony theory it fair takes the breath away. One concedes, of course, that unlike Gramsci Mr Singer could never be described as a Marxist, though it helps that his unwitting profit centre, Sally Rooney, has declared herself as such.

A book festival saboteuse who pronounced on conspiracy theories and misinformation on a Waterstones podcast was Doppelganger author Naomi Klein, while Ali Smith had a “very special event” at Waterstones Nottingham shortly after in The Waterstones Interview (still on YouTube) and Zadie Smith’s The Fraud was promoted at a ticketed event in the Piccadilly flagship. Yet another signatory, Michael Rosen, even had his own ‘Michael Rosen Day’ in Waterstones Lincoln Branch. Further examples are available.

The reality is, of course, that for those promoting their books Waterstones is virtually the only game in town. Even reluctant writers and publishers have to play by their rules. With the current demise of WHSmith, Waterstones is now effectively a bricks and mortar monopoly whose only serious competitor is Amazon. The entire book industry is in essence, being held captive, but don’t expect the chant “Hey, hey, ho,ho, Waterstones has got to go” anytime soon. Indeed, those who dissent from the line, like The Guardian’s Marina Hyde, should expect themselves to be viciously savaged, as she was on the ultra-dirigiste radical Canary website.

Your scrivener had first-hand experience of Waterstones hold over our reading choices when he sought out Jen Stout’s Night Train to Odesa in its Princes Street branch, to be told there were none in stock, though one could be ordered within three weeks – just great if you’re buying it as a Christmas present in mid-December!

A look at Waterstones Scottish selection, hidden in a corner of the ground floor, and a long walk past a mountain of Boris Johnson’s Unleashed and Ms Rooney’s Intermezzo, is instructive. It’s obviously easier to flog mass produced ‘units’ published by the big players than it is to bother with the locals.

There is a bright side. Twenty-five years ago the manager of Waterstones in Manchester had long promoted books and titles from small publishing houses and academic presses, while holding around 300 events annually. The Deansgate store was popular and profitable, but head office, citing competition from Amazon, axed many titles in stock to focus on high print-run bestsellers. The manager objected, and was sacked.

His name was Robert Topping. Determined to remain true to their values, he and his wife opened a bookshop in Ely, near Cambridge, in 2002. It proved a hit with book lovers, and others followed in Bath, St Andrews, and Edinburgh. Walk into the latter, which occupies a stunning Georgian building on Leith Walk, and you are greeted by a vast and varied selection of Scottish books. Sally Rooney’s bestsellers can be found up on the first floor, with the exception of a signed limited edition of Beautiful World, for only £125!

Quod erat demonstrandum, as they say.