As the world was gripped with Taylor Swift fever this Summer, in a rare move by the Metropolitan Police, the award winning singer was granted a taxpayer-funded blue-light escort to her Wembley concerts. Yet it has since been revealed that this highly unusual level of security was only achieved thanks to the intervention of the government’s top lawyer.
Initially, Scotland Yard had dismissed the idea of providing the singer with any special security, as it would breach its long-standing protocols to offer her VVIP treatment, however after intervention by the Attorney General, Lord Hermer KC, the force swiftly backtracked and provided Taylor with a level of security usually only reserved for members of the royal family and senior cabinet members, reports The Times.
News of the decision first emerged last week, when it was revealed that Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, and Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, urged the Met to give Swift special protection for two of her Eras Tour concerts in August, which would see her accompanied by police motorcycles while travelling to and from the venue.
The highly unusual decision marked a stark change from current policy, as the Met’s decisions are supposed to remain free from political interference as it is funded by the taxpayer.
In fact, the decision to offer Taylor Swift such enhanced security is even more unusual, given that the Met itself has continually rebuffed Prince Harry ’s own calls for security during his visits, with each trip now assessed on a case by case basis.
The Duke of Sussex was stripped of his blanket police protection back in 2020, when he made the decision to step back from life as a working royal and moved to America to focus on his young family with wife Meghan Markle.
In fact, Prince Harry is currently waging a legal battle with the Home Office over the decision taken by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which ruled that it was not in the public interest for him to continue to receive the “same degree” of police security he has received as a working royal.
After his case was rejected at the High Court in February, he was given permission to appeal against the ruling in June.
In Taylor’s case, the SEG’s security assessment found that there was no specific threat identified against the singer, with The Sun reporting that they had been against the idea of assigning her VVIP protection.
However, following the bomb scare in Vienna which saw her Eras tour cancelled in Austria, Swift’s mother and manager, Andrea had threatened to cancel the planned London shows over safety concerns.
The Sun claimed Cooper had warned any cancellation would be “economically damaging and embarrassing”.
Swift played 15 sets of dates throughout June and August in the UK, with the Eras tour believed to have brought in almost £1billion of extra income due to fans travelling from all over the world to attend.
