Sadiq Khan to be investigated after accepting £3,000 of free Taylor Swift tickets
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Sir Sadiq Khan is to be investigated by the City Hall watchdog over whether he “exercised an appropriate level of caution” before accepting £3,000 of free tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. The London mayor attended the US pop superstar’s gig at Wembley stadium on August 15 last year with family members.
He accepted six free tickets, each worth £500, to the concert from LS Events, a production company that has worked with City Hall as a contractor. Susan Hall, a Tory member of the London Assembly and former mayoral candidate, asked the Greater London Authority’s monitoring officer Rory McKenna to consider whether Sir Sadiq had breached the GLA’s gifts and hospitality rules.
The Standard learned on Friday that three of Ms Hall’s allegations are not being taken forward – but a fourth will be fully investigated. A spokesperson for the GLA said: “The monitoring officer has reviewed the complaint against the mayor and will not be investigating three of the four allegations.
“An investigation will now take place to establish if the mayor exercised an appropriate level of caution in deciding to accept the tickets.”. Ms Hall had complained that the tickets were declared 10 days late and that they were initially undervalued in the entry in the GLA’s gifts register.
She was also concerned that they had been donated by a contractor. But the monitoring officer decided that these three allegations did not justify further investigation. Sir Sadiq’s spokesperson said: “Any gift accepted by the mayor is declared openly and transparently.
