Oh dear. David Cameron has got himself into another grand mess.
At a reception at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday, the British prime minister was caught by a microphone revealing that he considered Nigeria and Afghanistan to be two of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Cameron was speaking with the Queen, his cabinet colleague Chris Grayling, House of Commons Speaker John Bercow and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. The Prime Minister said: “We had a very successful cabinet meeting this morning. We talked about our anti-corruption summit.
“We’ve got…some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain.
“Nigeria and Afghanistan are two of the most corrupt countries in the world.”
A spokesman for the Afghan embassy called the comments “unfair,” while a spokesman for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said: “This is embarrassing to us, to say the least…the Prime Minister must be looking at an old snapshot of Nigeria.”
Compounding the awkwardness, both President Buhari and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani are due to attend an anti-corruption summit in London beginning on Thursday.
Many will also feel that Cameron was too conversational with the Queen and behaved with insufficient formality towards his head of state.
