Prime Minister David Cameron has been overheard describing Nigeria and Afghanistan as “fantastically corrupt” in a conversation with the Queen.

In comments that were caught by a microphone during a reception at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday, he said Nigeria and Afghanistan were two of the most corrupt countries in the world, as the Guardian reports.

Speaking in front of the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the House of Commons speaker, John Bercow, and the cabinet minister Chris Grayling, Mr. Cameron 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 possibly two of the most corrupt countries in the world.”
The Queen did not respond to Cameron’s comment, but Welby noted: “But this particular president is actually not corrupt.”

The leaders of Afghanistan and Nigeria have acknowledged that they have problems with corruption, while Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, and his Nigerian counterpart, Muhammadu Buhari, have contributed to a book, Against Corruption, being published by Cameron to mark the summit.