{"id":670530,"date":"2026-01-03T05:35:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670530\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T05:35:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:35:23","slug":"khans-25k-worth-of-freebies-help-mayor-bang-the-drum-for-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670530\/","title":{"rendered":"Khan’s \u00a325k-worth of freebies help mayor ‘bang the drum’ for London"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mayor defended the number of gifts he received last year including Wimbledon, FA Cup and Barack Obama tickets, reports Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"LondonLondon mayor Sadiq Khan (credit Noah Vickers\/LDRS)<\/p>\n

Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan received at least \u00a325,690 worth of hospitality this year, City Hall data has revealed.<\/p>\n

The majority of this was \u00a316,913 from Bloomberg Philanthropies, for costs relating to the C40 World Mayors Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in November.<\/p>\n

Other freebies accepted by Khan included tickets to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium and a talk by former US President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Any City Hall staff \u2013 whether they be officials, assembly members or the mayor himself \u2013 must declare any gifts and hospitality worth more than \u00a325 within 28 days of receiving it.<\/p>\n

Two major giveaways accepted this year \u2013 aside from the Brazil trip \u2013 were two tickets to the British Museum\u2019s inaugural Pink Ball charity fundraiser, worth \u00a31,875, and \u00a32,609 to cover costs for a trip to Cannes for a leading real estate investment conference. Officials said the purpose was to \u201cattract global investment into London\u2019s housing, infrastructure, and regeneration projects, promoting the city as a prime destination for sustainable growth and development\u201d.<\/p>\n

The actual value is likely to be significantly higher as officials said the monetary value of tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show president\u2019s lunch, the Mission Impossible film premiere and a Brentford FC game against the mayor\u2019s beloved Liverpool were \u201cunknown\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 2025 freebies figure is slightly higher than the \u00a324,714-worth of gifts and hospitality accepted in 2024.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week the mayor was urged to ensure every gift received was \u201cappropriate\u201d \u2013 though City Hall officials said he would make \u201cno apology for banging the drum for the capital overseas\u201d.<\/p>\n

Susan Hall, who leads the Conservative Party group on the London Assembly, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): \u201cThat the mayor has had to declare all of these gifts and freebies transparently is a sign of how good our systems in Britain are at forcing politicians to be honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we can and must go further to ensure that gifts are appropriate, are not given by those who want something in return, and are not used as tools to engineer outcomes. When the mayor tries to hide from scrutiny, such as he did over the Taylor Swift tickets<\/a>, it undermines faith in these systems \u2013 we should be working to improve public trust, not erode it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khan\u2019s Brazil trip was particularly scrutinised by City Hall Tories at the time. Hall demanded to know the number of airmiles clocked up during the visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe return flights from London to Rio de Janeiro was 5,746 miles each way,\u201d the mayor said in a written answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere carbon emissions cannot be avoided, C40 will offset 100% of the emissions. Sustainability is prioritised and embedded in every aspect of the summit\u2019s planning and execution. From the handling of food, the type of food served and the creation of promotional materials to guest mobility and energy use, sustainability will be threaded throughout the organisation and logistics of the event.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a separate answer, he added: \u201cAll costs of my trip to Brazil were covered by Bloomberg Philanthropies with no cost to the taxpayer. Every effort is always made to keep costs down when I travel, and all expenses will be declared as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n

A month earlier, it emerged that the mayor celebrated his 55th birthday on board a superyacht owned by billionaire Fulham FC owner Shahid Khan. Khan\u2019s Jacksonville Jaguars team regularly play games in London.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year Khan was cleared after an investigation<\/a> into his acceptance of free tickets worth around \u00a33,000 to a Taylor Swift concert in August 2024, from a contractor with links to the Greater London Authority (GLA).<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the mayor told the LDRS: \u201cLondon is a global city and Sadiq makes no apology for banging the drum for the capital overseas to promote growth, generate new trade and investment opportunities and develop cultural links.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a vital part of the role of mayor as he works to create new jobs and deliver economic prosperity for the capital. The previous mayor made 34 international visits by plane, compared to Sadiq\u2019s 17.\u201d<\/p>\n

Independent news outlets like ours \u2013 reporting for the community without rich backers \u2013 are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, or one-off donation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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More Information about donations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mayor defended the number of gifts he received last year including Wimbledon, FA Cup and Barack Obama…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,62864,4884,257,14252,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-670530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-gifts","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-sadiq-khan","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115829547067566812","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}