Lisa Nandy says it was “right and proper” for the home secretary and mayor of London to be involved in discussions over a police escort for Taylor Swift ahead of her Wembley concerts. Senior Labour politicians including Sir Keir Starmer, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Ms Nandy were given free tickets to Eras Tour shows, but the culture secretary says, “that was all declared transparently”. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00What I do know is that Taylor Swift later put out a statement
00:03thanking the police, the government and all parties for coming together to find a solution
00:09to what was a very real security problem. I'm not aware of the nature of the London issue
00:14but I do know that this came off the back of Taylor Swift having to cancel a number of concerts
00:20in Vienna because of a very real terrorist threat and it was right and proper that all
00:26parties came together to discuss that, to weigh up the risks and then for the police to make an
00:32operational decision about whether to provide security. The Home Secretary and the Mayor of
00:36London have no remit to make that decision, that is an operational matter for the police. It's
00:41absolutely right and proper for them to be involved in a conversation about a major event where there
00:46are security considerations and public safety considerations. I don't know when the tickets
00:51were offered or taken. I do know the Home Secretary wasn't one of those and I also know
00:56that the reason that we're having this conversation is because all of that was declared openly and
01:01transparently. That's how the system for Ministers and Members of Parliament works, is that there
01:07will be events that we attend. I myself attended the Taylor Swift concert, had conversations there
01:12with people from the music industry and others as the Culture Secretary responsible for music
01:18and that is all declared openly and transparently so that people can make their own minds up.