She was discussing their treatment of Britain’s ambassador to China with a senior police officer at a Buckingham Palace garden party on Tuesday, just hours after Prime Minister David Cameron was filmed telling her that Afghanistan and Nigeria were “fantastically corrupt.”
Later, the Queen told her guest: “They were very rude to the ambassador” – referring to Barbara Woodward, Britain’s first female ambassador to China.
The queen’s remarks may not be helpful to the British government’s determined efforts to boost trade ties with China.
Under her constitutional role, the 90-year-old monarch never makes any politically or diplomatically sensitive comments in public, and it is rare for the content of her private conversations to be revealed.
The conversation with Commander Lucy D’Orsi began with the Queen quipping “oh, bad luck” when a palace official talked about how the officer had been assigned as Gold Commander for the state visit of the Chinese president in October.
The UK police had been “seriously undermined by the Chinese” in their handling of the visit, but the officer had managed to “hold her own,” D’Orsi said.
‘Extraordinary’
An official went on to tell the Queen that Commander D’Orsi had been “seriously, seriously undermined by the Chinese, but she managed to hold her own and remain in command”.
Commander D’Orsi told the Queen: “I was the Gold Commander so I’m not sure whether you knew, but it was quite a testing time for…”
“I did,” the Queen said.
Commander D’Orsi continued: “It was at the point they walked out of Lancaster House and told me that the trip was off, that I felt…”
The Queen said: “They were very rude to the ambassador.”
Commander D’Orsi replied: “They were… it was very rude and undiplomatic I thought.”
The Queen described it as “extraordinary”. BBC reported.
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