Yvette Cooper’s husband’s advice was to ‘shake it off’ over Taylor Swift protection questions
The Shake it Off singer finished her worldwide Eras Tour with three nights at Wembley Stadium in August
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Yvette Cooper has joked her husband’s advice was to “shake it off” days after she faced questions over Taylor Swift’s VIP police protection at her London concerts.
The home secretary also told journalists at Westminster that “haters gonna hate, hate, hate”.
Last week ministers denied claims that a police escort for Ms Swift was the result of “undue influence” from senior politicians, including Ms Cooper.
It followed reports the Metropolitan Police had initially been reluctant to give the pop star the kind of protection normally reserved for royalty and politicians.
The Shake it Off singer finished the final leg of her globe-trotting Eras Tour with three nights at Wembley Stadium in August.
The gigs happened just days after she cancelled three planned concerts in Vienna following a failed terror plot.
It later emerged that Ms Cooper had attended one of Ms Swift’s Wembley concerts as the guest of her husband, the former Labour minister Ed Balls.
At the event in parliament, she joked: “Ed’s advice was, in the words of a... superstar “Haters gonna hate, hate, hate. Shake it off. Shake it off.”
She added: “And that’s how we’ll keep going. And also focusing on the things that we’re doing and the things that we are doing to change things across the country.”
She said that even in the last 101 days, her department had, among other things, set up the new Border Security Command, banned machetes and introduced a law to bring in domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms.
Last week the culture secretary Lisa Nandy denied claims of undue influence by politicians.
She said: “When you have major events, whether in London or in other parts of the UK, the home secretary will be involved in a conversation where there is a security risk.
“I also know that she doesn’t have the power, nor would she use the power, to insist that any individual got the top level of private security arrangements. That is an operational matter for the police, not for the government.
“The police made the decision. Ultimately, it is their decision, and nobody else can make it.”
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