Mayor cleared over free Taylor Swift tickets

Sir Sadiq Khan accepted six Taylor Swift tickets worth about £3,000

The mayor of London has been cleared of wrongdoing in accepting free tickets worth around £3,000 to a Taylor Swift concert last August.

An independent investigation concluded that Sir Sadiq Khan did not breach the Greater London Authority (GLA) code of conduct, and that he had exercised an appropriate degree of caution.

The Tories asked the GLA's monitoring officer Rory McKenna to investigate after it emerged that the tickets had been provided by LS Events, a contractor to the GLA.

A spokesperson for Sir Sadiq Khan said: "Any gift accepted by the Mayor is declared openly and transparently. In this case there was an administrative error which was quickly corrected."

Taylor Swift performed eight concerts at Wembley last summer during the Eras Tour

Sir Sadiq watched the concert with family members from a VIP box on 15 August 2024, during the pop star's sell-out run at Wembley Stadium last summer.

There were five other members of City Hall staff with him, including two senior officials.

Mr McKenna decided in January that there would be no further investigation into three of the allegations - that the tickets were declared late, were undervalued, and were provided by a contractor.

However, he asked an independent investigator to determine whether the mayor had "exercised an appropriate level of caution".

This investigation has now cleared the mayor of all wrongdoing.

Susan Hall, leader of the City Hall Conservatives who made the initial complaint, said: "I am disappointed that the investigation has finished this way, but ultimately it'll be up to Londoners to decide whether the Mayor acted appropriately in accepting free tickets from a firm that contracts with the GLA for tens of millions of pounds.

"This investigation has shone a spotlight on the relationship between the Mayor and businesses contracted by the GLA."

The mayor has said that he "has no involvement in the procurement process for GLA events, nor in the tendering of these contracts."