Following the cancelation of three concerts in Vienna due to an alleged suicide attack plot, American singer Taylor Swift received a special police escort for her London engagements.
After rumors circulated that the singer had a motorcycle escort—a status often accorded to lawmakers and high-ranking members of the royal family—the Culture Minister Lisa Nandy denied that the artist was receiving special treatment.
Her denial coincides with criticism of the newly formed Labour administration, which includes Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who received six tickets to the Swift event, for receiving gratuitous gifts.
Starmer, who attended the concert with his wife Victoria, announced last week that he had repaid thousands of pounds worth of gifts including the concert tickets.
But Nandy said the police escort, first reported by The Sun newspaper, was not the result of pressure from senior politicians.
“I utterly reject that there’s been any kind of wrongdoing or undue influence in this case,” she told Sky News television.
Had Yvette Cooper, the interior minister, not insisted that “any individual got the top level of private security arrangements,” She stated, “That is a police operational issue, not a government issue.
Among the other Labour lawmakers who received complimentary tickets for the “Eras” tour performances were Nandy, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and Education Minister Bridget Phillipson.
The Swift tour visited twelve different nations before concluding its European leg in London in August.
However, the foiled attempt in Austria during the final month of the tour was a source of great disappointment for the organizers, who disclosed that a supporter of the Islamic State was preparing a lethal assault at a Vienna concert.
Three suspects were detained and all three August concert dates in Vienna were cancelled after an investigation conducted with the help of US intelligence.
According to The Sun report, Swift’s mother and manager threatened to axe the London shows in August unless she received the police escort.
It alleged that the Met Police agreed after “personal interventions from Cooper and Khan”, stressing that any cancellation would be “economically damaging and embarrassing”.
The Swift tour had been forecast to boost the UK economy by almost o1 billion ($1.3 billion), Barclays bank said in a study entitled “Swiftonomics”.
London’s Metropolitan Police told AFP the force was “operationally independent” with decisions taken on the basis of a “thorough assessment of threat, risk and harm and the circumstances of each case”.
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