Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No – that is not a joke. It seems that Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is likely to boost the British economy by an astonishing £1 billion, with London alone getting an uplift of £300 million. Liberal Democrats have called for her to receive the highest accolade granted by the City of London.
Barclays Bank has done its sums, and reckons that
Adding up the total spending for Brits on the UK leg alone – that’s 1.2 million tickets over 15 nights and four stadiums at capacity, with merchandise, outfits, food, accommodation, travel and more – the Eras Tour is expected to bring in almost £1 billion (£997m) to the UK’s experience economy.
The impact is being felt right across the country, but in particular in Liverpool, Edinburgh, Cardiff and London, where the 15 concerts were staged.
On top of that she has made huge donations charities, including food banks in every city where she toured in the UK.
Sarah Olney, our Treasury spokesperson, says:
We were enchanted to welcome Taylor Swift and the Eras Tour to the UK. Her decorated 18 year career has been one of endless philanthropy and using her platform to bring reforms to the music industry, all while releasing chart topping hits and breaking record after record.
But Taylor Swift is now on track to achieve her most impressive feat yet; patching part of the blank space the Conservative government left in the British economy after years of neglect.
The Eras Tour has provided hours of joy to the thousands of fans attending the shows, but the real legacy of Taylor Swift’s tour will be the lifeline it provides to our economy, so it is only right that she be recognised with London’s highest honour.
And this story has made the front page headlines in the media:
To back this up Tom Gordon, Lib Dem MP for Harrogate, has tabled an Early Day Motion in Westminster:
Recognising the Economic Impact of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour on the UK Economy:
That this House acknowledges the substantial economic impact of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour on the UK economy, with an estimated boost of nearly £1 billion; notes the concept of ‘Swiftonomics’ as a demonstration of how cultural events can drive significant economic activity across multiple sectors, including hospitality, retail, and transportation; further notes that the tour’s presence in cities such as London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and Cardiff has led to increased tourism, job creation, and local business growth; recognises the long-term benefits of heightened international visibility for these cities as premier destinations for global events; and calls on the Government to continue supporting and investing in the UK’s cultural and entertainment industries to maximize their economic contributions and cultural influence.
Behind this, of course, is the recognition that cultural activities have a huge impact on local and national economies.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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17 Comments
I don’t for a moment doubt the good intent behind this idea, but I can’t agree. Firstly, my own view of all unearned titles and honorifics, however functionally meaningless they are, is that as liberals we should have nothing to do with them, especially when they make distinctions between grades of freedom. That applies to honorary degrees and doctorates and O/M/C/KBEs and all equivalent baubles too (sorry Sir Ed). I have always thought these things reinforce a class-driven system of status and institutional favour rather than merit. Secondly, if we are going to have these ridiculous things, let them be given to nurses, care workers, streetsweepers and people who really and truly keep the city (or any city or town) going, not hypercapitalist celebrities – however impressive, personable and charitable – who, whatever their contribution to the economy, have earned, perfectly fairly, considerable financial reward from the exercise themselves.
I agree with Jack Nicholls. But would add that while £1 billion is impressive the GDP of London in 2022 was £562.2 billion according to Wikipedia. If that’s correct then Taylor Swifts contribution is around 0.2%. So it depends on how you look at it.
I would support this provided she agree to attend in person to receive the award. That would generate further economic benefit…
Isnt this £1b just money changing hands within the UK? It reminds me of the saying that the best way to boost GDP would be for everyone in the country to get divorced.
If it’s not bringing outside money into the UK or doing something to increase everybody’s disposable income (including that of people who choose to spend part of their income on going to one of the concerts) then the country as a whole won’t benefit.
Ms Swift is not a UK taxpayer…….. she takes money out of the UK…… indeed she’s not much of a taxpayer in the USA (where she is resident) either :
“How Taylor Swift Saves on Taxes – Mrs. Dow Jones, https://www.mrsdowjones.com › post › how-taylor-swif…….. Thanks to this astute move, Taylor Swift is now enjoying a 20-80% reduction in property taxes, tax credits for renovations…..”
But hey, who can complain when you get a good headline by bringing a bit of reductio ad absurdum into UK politics ?
While Mary is absolutely right to talk up the value of entertainment and the arts to Britain, the financial boost to GDP from Taylor Swift’s visit is nowhere near the one £billion figure quoted in some parts of the media. It included spending which will be repatriated to the USA and other amounts paid for travel and at the venues which has simply been diverted to a different location because the Swifties are away from home.
It’s good to see Taylor Swift saying all the right things about social issues, although a cynic reading the information above about the taxes she pays might think that doesn’t harm her image and her earning potential. If nothing else, Tom Gordon needs to obtain a better estimate of the GDP boost mentioned in his EDM.
It did bring a lot of visitors into the UK bringing their spending on hotels and restaurants with them, although as many of them will have flown you can argue that the benefits of the financial boost was cancelled out by the environmental damage.
What I would say is that the tour brought a lot of joy to a lot of people, and it’s nice to have big events that bring all but the most curmudgeonly together. And for a lot of hospitality still recovering from the COVID years, it will have been very helpful.
While I agree with reservations about some honours, being awarded one for achieving something or contributing to society is favouring merit. The problem is with the system for deciding who has shown merit.
Isn’t the extra spending in London just spending that doesn’t get spent elsewhere in the UK? With the exception of the foreigners who visit the UK to see her, the net monetary effect on the UK will surely be a loss of the money that Taylor and her crew take back to the US with them? Accountancy-wise, a ticket for one of her concerts is an import, surely?
There are thousands of better musicians than Taylor scraping a living in obscurity. Please not more hype and grovelling to mediocrity and blandness.
This is a political shot in the foot. Cue Liberals responding by saying they don’t like honours, or they don’t like commercialism, or they don’t like Swift’s music. Meanwhile, a lot of young women will conclude that Taylor is their kind of feminist icon, and Liberal politicians, not so much!
With respect, I don’t see anyone here seeking to determine who should or should not be considered an icon. I’m also not sure that, in the populist age, politicians of any stripe, but particularly ours, should be in the icon or icon-following business. This isn’t about who people should or shouldn’t like, it’s a legitimate discussion about the grounds upon which honours are or should be conferred. I would maintain my view if we were discussing, for the sake of argument, Suzanne Vega or Nick Cave or Tarja Turunen.
Does Taylor Swift really need to be able to drive a flock of sheep up Whitehall toll free?
As I understand it, the City of London is not actually under the control of the UK government, but is rather the administrive centre of the City of London Corporation. that operates from the Guildhall. Not a separate nation state like the Vatican – it falls under the jurisdiction of Greater London and the GLA, but the City of London has a special status: it has its own government, its own mayor and its own independent police force.
According to Conspiracy archive (perhaps not the best source)it seems that “The City is not a part of England, just as Washington is not a part of the USA…When the Queen wishes to conduct business within the City, she is met by the Lord Mayor at Temple (Templar) Bar where she requests permission to enter this private, sovereign state. She then proceeds into the City walking several paces behind the Mayor. Her entourage may not be clothed in anything other than service uniforms.” What You Didn’t Know About Taxes & The ‘Crown’
Does the Queen of American pop – Taylor Swift – understand all these rules?
I have to say, as a trainee Swiftie, that I completely get how brilliant Taylor Swift is. She has totally stood up to the music establishment and has had a successful career on her terms and been such a brilliant role model to at least two generations of women and young girls.
For the amount of pure joy she brought so many people, she deserves all the accolades we can give her.
But, I do think this is a bit of a stretch. Our press release kind of implies that 4 nights of Swift negates 6 weeks of Liz Truss’s crashing the economy. Not so sure about that one.
But it’s Summer, it’s fun and it got us some front page coverage.
I’m only surprised we didn’t go the whole hog and demand the recall of Parliament to debate it.
@ Joe Bourke; Conspiracy Archive “perhaps not the best source”. Contender for Understatement of the Decade, I should think.
The link to this site favours us with the following farrago:
“There are two Crowns operant in England… [the] other Crown is comprised of a committee of 12 banks headed by the Bank of England (House of Rothschild). They rule the world from the 677-acre, independent sovereign state know as The City of London, or simply ‘The City’…
… Temple Bar is the juristic arm of the Crown and holds an exclusive monopoly on global legal fraud through their Bar Association franchises. The Temple Bar is comprised of four Inns of Court. They are; the Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn. The entry point to these closed secret societies is only to be found when one is called to their Bar…
… Those cards in your wallet bearing your name spelled in all capital letters means that you have been enfranchised and have the status of a corporation. A ‘juristic personality’ has been created, and you have entered into multi-variant agreements that place you in an equity relationship with the Crown.”.
I’m not going to waste time trying to list the bits of nonsense (seasoned with a tasty little dash of anti-Semitism) in all of this, but readers may find it diverting to do so. It makes the manifesto of Reform UK and the speeches of Liz Truss look positively intelligent.
Taylor stands up to the musical establishment?She is the musical establishment.
What a non-issue! Is this what the LibDems are reduced to calling for and releasing press releases and trying to get publicity about?
If any of our MPs are stuck for ideas for REAL issues affecting people’s lives that they can campaign on or try to get some publicity for, then please get them to give me a call. I’m sure I can give them a few hundred suggestions that they can then choose between 😉.