A Scottish publisher has denied it has used money from Creative Scotland, the national arts funding body, for its book about SNP MPs.
Freight Books of Glasgow has published a book called We Are The 56.
Critics suggested that the publisher, which was recently named Publisher of the Year by the Saltire Society, had used a recent grant from Creative Scotland of nearly £70,000 to help print the book.
MSPs queried whether it was right that a government body had funded a book with a “clear political agenda.”
However both Freight Books and Creative Scotland say the grant did not pay for the publication.
A Freight statement said: “Not a single penny of Creative Scotland money was used towards the production of We are the 56.
“It was not in the funding application and no money was received for it.”
A Creative Scotland spokesman said the book was not part of its funding package.
A Creative Scotland logo on the book was printed in error, he said.
He added: “Freight Books has quickly established itself as one of Scotland’s leading publishing houses, offering a platform for new and emerging writers alongside established authors, this is reflected in their recent Publisher of the Year Award at the Saltire Awards.
“Creative Scotland does not seek to influence the political views held by the individuals and organisations we fund in any way, nor do political views influence our funding decisions.
“The work we fund is led by people from many different backgrounds who hold a range of different political opinions. This generates healthy creative discourse that feeds our society in many ways."
This week the Liberal Democrat MSP, who sits on Holyrood’s public audit committee, asked why a “national publication with a clear political agenda has received support from a government body.”
Jackie Bailie, Labour MSP, said she would be writing to the culture secretary, Fiona Hyslop, over the matter.
Freight published books this year by a number of Scottish writers including Janice Galloway, Kirstin Innes – whose Fishnet won the Not The Booker Prize award – and Philip Miller, arts correspondent for The Herald and, in 2013, Neil Mackay, executive editor of the Sunday Herald.
Freight also took over the publishing imprint Cargo this year, which published Iain Macwhirter’s Road to Referendum.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here