Sadiq Khan probed over accepting FREE Taylor Swift tickets worth £3000 in ‘ethics’ row
SADIQ Khan is being investigated over accepting £3,000 worth of Taylor Swift tickets last summer.
City Hall’s ethics watchdog has opened a probe into whether the London Mayor “exercised an appropriate level of caution” before taking the freebies.
A string of Labour politicians bagged complimentary tickets to the UK leg of the Eras tour – resulting in a row over hospitality that saw Sir Keir Starmer repay his.
Mr Khan went with family to the Shake It Off megastar’s August 15 sellout at Wembley stadium courtesy of a production company.
He took the six tickets – each worth £500 – from LS Events, which has previously secured contracts from City Hall.
It sparked four complaints from the Tory assembly member Susan Hall to the Greater London Authority’s compliance officer.
Rory McKenna – who is paid £96,000 a year to enforce ethics – threw out three of her qualms: that Mr Khan’s declarations had been late, inaccurate, and possible conflict of interest.
But he has decided to pursue a claim that the Mayor should have acted more cautiously before taking the tickets.
A spokesperson for the GLA said: “An investigation will now take place to establish if the Mayor exercised an appropriate level of caution in deciding to accept the tickets.”
A spokesperson for Mr Khan said: “Any gift accepted by the Mayor is declared openly and transparently. In this case there was an administrative error which was corrected.
“The Mayor has no involvement in the procurement process for GLA events, nor in the tendering of these contracts.
“The Mayor’s office will continue to ensure all the right processes are followed, and looks forward to explaining the approach that was taken in this instance.”
Ms Hall said: “Whilst I welcome an investigation into the propriety of accepting these tickets, after months of asking Khan for answers, I am disappointed that the Monitoring Officer isn’t considering the fact that the Mayor declared these tickets late, initially mis-declared who donated them, that they were also undervalued, or that the donor was a GLA contractor. More answers are desperately needed.”
Swift’s concerts last summer sparked a political row after it emerged Mr Khan and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had pressed the Met to give the singer a blue-light police escort.
It also triggered a “freebiegate” row that saw the PM pay back £6,000 worth of gifts, including six Swift tickets worth more than £3,000.