Sources from 10 Downing Street have confirmed that Taylor Swift met up with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer while she was in the country.
According to a new report by The Guardian, the Labour leader and his family met Swift for around 10 minutes while backstage at her show at Wembley Stadium on August 20.
It comes after Number 10 initially declined to comment as to whether or not the Prime Minister had met the singer, after he and his family were invited on August 16 to one of her numerous concerts at the venue.
Now, it has been confirmed by a spokesperson for Downing Street that Starmer did briefly meet and speak to the singer while she was in the UK, and largely discussed the Southport murders.
The incident in Southport took place on July 29, when three children were killed in a knife attack at a Swift-themed dance and yoga workshop. As reported by Sky News, three of the victims – six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, and nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar – sadly passed. A 17-year-old was charged with the murders of the three children.
Swift spoke out about the tragedy in a statement on July 30, that the “horror” of the attack had left her “completely in shock”. It was also reported that she had “reached out to families of stabbing victims” before returning to perform at Wembley Stadium on August 15, and met up with some of the victims at the venue.
According to the Guardian report, Starmer and Swift spoke about the incident, and did not discuss the police escorts that had been provided for the singer and her entourage while she was in the city.
This comes as the meeting took place just days after reports emerged that Swift had been granted police convoys to the stadium for her five August shows. Usually, the Special Escort Group (SEG) is reserved for senior politicians and the royal family, and Downing Street has repeatedly said that this was an operational matter for Scotland Yard, namely after the foiled terror plot planned for one of her three shows in Vienna.
The outlet also stated that Downing Street has denied that Starmer received free tickets to the Taylor Swift show as a “thank you” for getting the police escorts for the singer. “I completely reject that characterisation. It’s ultimately up to the police to take operational decisions in relation to these big events,” a spokesperson said.
Starmer declared the tickets, worth £2,800, to the final night of Swift’s ‘Eras’ tour in the UK capital in line with parliamentary rules. However, he later paid them back following long-running criticism over accepting thousands of pounds worth of freebies.
Following the completion of her tour dates across the UK and Europe, Swift is set to head back to North America this week, before she ends her mammoth ‘Eras Tour’ in Vancouver, Canada in early December.
“This has definitely been the most exhausting, all-encompassing but most joyful, most rewarding, most wonderful thing that has ever wondered in my life, this tour,” Swift told the crowd as she marked her 100th ‘Eras Tour’ show in Liverpool in June.
In other Taylor Swift news, the singer yesterday (October 15) announced an official book to commemorate the ‘Eras Tour’, as well as the physical editions of her ‘Anthology’ album.
