British Prime Minister, David Cameron was on Tuesday caught on camera telling Queen Elizabeth that Nigeria and Afghanistan are “fantastically corrupt” countries on the eve of President Muhammadu Buhari’s arrival in London for an anti-corruption summit.
Cameron was speaking in a group alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the Leader of the Commons Chris Grayling and the Commons Speaker, John Bercow.
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani, is also due at the summit Cameron is hosting on Thursday.
Below is exactly how the conversation went:
John Bercow: The great axis of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House [Chris Grayling].
David Cameron: Well I don’t know about that. We’re on the same side most of the time. We’ve had a very successful cabinet meeting this morning to talk about our anti-corruption summit, we’ve got the Nigerians… actually we’ve got the leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain. Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world.
Justin Welby: But this particular president is actually not corrupt.
Queen: Is that right?
Welby: Oh yes, he’s trying very hard this one.
Bercow: They are coming at their own expense, one assumes?
[Group laughs]
Cameron: I… Yes… Because it’s an anti-corruption summit, everything has to be open. So there are no sort of closed door sessions, it’s all in front of the press. It could be quite, umm, interesting. But there we go.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said it would not comment on a private conversation, but noted that both Buhari and Ghani “have acknowledged the scale of the corruption challenge they face in their countries”.
