Home secretary enjoyed free tickets to Taylor Swift gig after pushing for star to get police escort

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper attended Taylor Swift's concert in London for free using tickets provided to her husband by the megastar's music label Universal, Sky News can reveal.

Ms Cooper went to one of the gigs where the star was given extra police protection, which she is claimed to have been pushing for.

The home secretary went as a guest of her husband, former Labour minister Ed Balls. Mr Balls was offered the four tickets on 4 August, before Ms Swift's shows in Vienna were cancelled after a terror plot was foiled, and the couple attended the gig on 16 August after the security discussions.

Ms Cooper and London Mayor Sadiq Khan spoke to the Metropolitan Police to encourage them to give the megastar a "VVIP escort" through London for her Wembley Stadium concerts.

The Met were reportedly reluctant to sign it off as a blue-light escort is typically reserved for senior members of the Royal Family and high-level politicians, as it comes at huge expense to the taxpayer, The Sun reported.

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No information about the tickets has appeared in the public domain until today.

The tickets were understood to be worth £170 - less than the £300 that would make it a declarable expense - but the home secretary made the declaration to the Cabinet Office earlier today.

The concert is understood to have been 16 August.

Tory MP Stuart Andrew said on X that Ms Cooper's decision to attend the concert was "outrageous and raises some serious questions".

Sky News understands the Home Office department were informed as soon as the tickets were offered and the Permanent Secretary's office informed the Cabinet Office on 23 September. At this point there was concern that the Commons Parliamentary commissioner was not willing to make it public.

It also understood the home secretary's team had been liaising with their Permanent Secretary's office about this for the last week or so.

A source close to the home secretary told Sky News: "The London Taylor Swift concerts in August came immediately after the cancellation of her Vienna concerts, following the discovery of a terror plot which the CIA's deputy director said was designed to kill "tens of thousands" of attendees, and which led to widespread questions about whether the London concerts would go ahead.

"They also came after a fortnight of serious and violent disorder in a number of British towns and cities, which followed the terrible attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport.

"In the aftermath of the Manchester Arena attack on the Ariana Grande concert in 2017, security arrangements for events like these are taken extremely seriously. Indeed, the government will shortly legislate for Martyn's Law to improve the security of venues.

"We can make categorically clear that all operational decisions were made by the Metropolitan Police and they do not discuss security arrangements."

Ms Swift's mother Andrea, who is also her manager, apparently threatened to pull her daughter's shows if the police convoy was not provided.

Days before, the musician was forced to axe her shows in Vienna due to a foiled suicide bomb plot targeting her Eras tour, which the US's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) later said was intended to kill tens of thousands of people.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told Sky News on Wednesday that she "utterly rejected" there was "any kind of wrongdoing" by the Labour government or London's Labour mayor.

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She said "you would expect" the home secretary and the mayor to be involved in a conversation "where there is a security risk", such as after the Vienna bomb plot.

"It's an operational matter for the police, not for the government," she told Sky News.

The minister added Ms Cooper will have made a "considered judgement about that and expressed a view".

She added: "Don't forget that when it comes to Taylor Swift, what had just happened was that a series of concerts have been cancelled in Vienna because of the very serious security threat.

"I really utterly reject that there's been any kind of wrongdoing or undue influence in this case."