Kay Burley clashed with a cabinet minister amid claims the home secretary and London mayor put pressure on the Metropolitan Police to give Taylor Swift a blue light escort to Wembley Stadium.
The Sun reported that both Yvette Cooper and Sadiq Khan urged Met chiefs to lay on security for the pop star for her recent concerts in London.
It came after a number of her concerts in Austria had to be cancelled over fears it could be targeted by terrorists.
On Sky News this morning, Burley grilled culture secretary Lisa Nandy over the arrangement.
Nandy insisted it was right for Cooper and Khan to “express a view” on the matter, but that the final decision would rest with the police.
She said: “I utterly reject that there has been any kind of wrongdoing or undue influence in this case.
“The decision who gets security and who doesn’t is an operational matter for the police, not for the mayor.”
Nandy defended the mayor’s decision to accept free tickets to one of Swift’s concerts, insisting it was right that he attend events which boost London’s economy.
Prime minister Keir Starmer also received hospitality at one of the concerts from Swift’s record label Universal Music, but announced last week that he was repaying the money.
Burley said: “If the mayor and the prime minister are going to this concert and they’re involved in over-ruling the decision by the Metropolitan Police, they should stay a mile away from that conversation.”
Nandy: “There’s no suggestion that the prime minister did any such thing.”
The presenter hit back: “You’re trying to get me to believe that the prime minister did not know that she was going to get a blue light motorcade?”
The minister said: “I’m not trying to get you to believe anything. I haven’t had a conversation with him or the home secretary, but what I can tell you is that neither prime minister or the home secretary or the mayor of London has the power to over-ride the police on this matter.”
As tempers frayed, Nandy then said “most of Sky News were at these concerts in the same boxes as well, to be completely fair”.
That prompted Burley to ask: “Who was there?”
The minister said: “Well you were there, for one.”
The presenter hit back: “I paid for my tickets. I paid for my tickets.
“I paid for mine eight months up front, so please don’t do that. Who else apart from me went from Sky?”
Bizarrely, Nandy then said: “Well I went, and I’ve declared that in line with the ministerial code.”
Burley told her: “But you don’t work for Sky.”
The minister replied: “Your suggestion is that somehow [politicians] shouldn’t be going. My point is that as long as they declare it and are absolutely up front about what has happened, people can judge for themselves and people will judge for themselves and it’s fair that they do that.
“But the suggestion that the home secretary intervened and made a decision about security arrangements for Taylor Swift is simply not true.”
The Metropolitan Police told The Sun: “The Met is operationally independent. Our decision-making is based on a thorough assessment of threat, risk and harm and circumstances of each case.”