Just In: Taylor Swift London Police Escort “Urged By UK Gov’t Intervention After Star’s Mother Threatened To Cancel” – Report Read More

Taylor Swift’s police escort during her Wembley Stadium concerts in London this summer was approved after pressure from the UK government’s top lawyer, The Times of London reports.

Following a furor over government figures receiving free tickets to see Swift perform on her record-breaking Eras tour, the newspaper reports that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and London mayor Sadiq Khan both urged the Metropolitan Police to give Swift taxpayer-funded heightened protection during her visit to the capital.

The Times reports that the Metropolitian Police warned that such VVIP protection would breach long-standing protocols: such a service is normally available only to senior cabinet ministers and members of the royal family. It reports that the government’s senior lawyer, attorney-general Lord Harmer KC, was recruited to put extra pressure on the police force.

Last week The Sun newspaper reported that the government intervention came after Swift’s mother and manager, Andrea, threatened to cancel the singer’s London shows in August after her concerts in Vienna were abandoned following a suicide-bomb plot foiled by the CIA. The newspaper said that Cooper had warned any cancellation would be “economically damaging and embarrassing”, and her request came soon after an infants’ Swift-themed yoga class had ended in tragedy in northern England.

Swift played 15 dates in June and August with claims the tour boosted UK spending by almost £1 billion ($1.3B).