The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is under investigation after accepting free tickets to a Taylor Swift concert.
Khan, who has held the high-profile position in the British capital for nine years now, reportedly accepted £3000 (around $3,600) worth of Swift gig tickets when she was in London on her Eras Tour last August.
A member of the Labour Party, Khan will be investigated by a governing body called the Greater London Authority (GLA), which has been called in at the request of the Tories to probe a potential breach of the rules (ones relating to politicians accepting gifts, often a catalyst for controversy in British politics). The standard regulation is that ministers are allowed to keep gifts, but they must declare them.
The GLA’s monitoring officer confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday that three out of four allegations against the Mayor do not justify further investigation, including his declaration of the tickets being late and inaccurate.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
But, “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 the GLA said.
A spokesperson for Khan added: “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.”
Swift’s stop in the U.K. last year was monumental for the British economy, projected to boost it by around one billion pounds. Almost 1.2 million fans attended the 15 concerts she held in London, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Cardiff.
And seemingly, no one was more excited than Khan, who welcomed Swift and her Swifties to London on his social media last year.
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