This month, the former Perrier Awards for Comedy on the Edinburgh Fringe have been taken over by Foster’s, the beer company. The main award, which usually goes to an unknown turn, remains. But Foster’s has also invited the public to vote for a “Comedy God” from all the nominees of the last 30 years. This is idiotic.

Most of the 173 individual and company names on the list remain cult concerns, with little or no film or audio evidence of their existence. So how can they be voted for in an informed way? Some of the names listed represent actual shows that were nominated for awards, such as Will Adamsdale’s Jackson’s Way. Others are performers themselves, such as The Mighty Boosh, who were nominated for a piece I directed, called Arctic Boosh, in 1999. It’s like asking whether Martin Amis the writer is better than Trainspotting the book. And the entrance criteria have changed so much over 30 years as to make comparison between eras a nonsense.

In a grumpy email to the organisers, I suggested that the Japanese performance art group Frank Chickens, who were nominated way back in 1984, may well be the best thing on the list for all any of the voters know. By a delightful happenstance, disgruntled voters got wind of this, hit their keyboards and the Chickens, who recently regrouped, are currently on course to be named Foster’s Comedy Gods, ahead of contemporary, brand-consolidating stadium fillers like Michael McIntyre and Russell Howard.

But the administrative errors in Foster’s now discredited poll are trivial compared to the questions it throws up about the ethics of corporate sponsorship: questions that are suddenly newly significant as we enter the era of Dave Cameron’s “Big Society”. Dave tells us that the way forward for areas of life that once received public funding, or that might have benefited from it, lies in partnerships with charitable organisations and businesses. But charitable organisations have ethical agendas, businesses want bang for their buck, and the moral scruples of their supposed beneficiaries have to take a back seat when the cash starts flowing. For example, not a single one of the Fringe performers on the list of potential “Gods” was asked for permission before being used to drive traffic towards Foster’s. The artists’ compliance and gratitude are simply taken for granted.

And businesses’ bankrolling comes with caveats. It’s easier to lure company money to fund a monkey sanctuary than to secure it for a study of intestinal lice, yet both are an important part of our understanding of our environment. Sexy causes snag the stash. And in the case of arts sponsorship, do big corporations want to be associated with awkward and uncompromising art?

Sainsbury’s benefits from its reputation for arts philanthropy, but withdrew DVDs of Jerry Springer the Opera (which I co-wrote) from its shelves after complaints from rightwing Christian agitators. It’s a safe bet that the Foster’s public vote should have enabled the brewers to hitch their brand to the kind of big name that usually wins such popularity contests, but it may be that Foster’s instead learns a little of what the Fringe really is: an event that for six decades has been essentially bankrolled by loss-making performers in an unmediated celebration of artistic diversity. Frank Chickens might be said to embody this rather more convincingly than a famous comedian.

The Big Society is coming. This fringe comedy teacup storm is a tiny echo of the full implications. Batten down the hatches.