Elizabeth II joked “at least I won’t have that idiot organising my funeral now” after accepting Boris Johnson’s resignation as prime minister, according to a new book.
The late Queen made the comment “to amuse” during a gathering of family and her closest aides in Balmoral two days before her death, an author has claimed.
She had appointed Liz Truss as her 15th prime minister in her final official act of her reign.
Tim Shipman, the author of Out, a political history of Brexit, claimed the late Queen also said Mr Johnson was “perhaps better suited to the stage”.
Sources who knew the late Queen have warned the words did not sound like her, not least because she would have been aware that the Earl Marshal is responsible for royal funerals. Buckingham Palace did not comment.
“The courtier explained that the Queen’s final days had been happy ones,” writes Shipman of September 2022.
“She had enjoyed a gathering of her family and treasured staff two evenings before her death.
“The courtier confided that when Boris Johnson was mentioned, the Queen, mischief in her eye, had said: ‘Well at least I won’t have that idiot organising my funeral now.’
“This, it seems, was said to amuse but it was a widely shared sentiment in the royal household.”
‘Undiluted fury’
The author also wrote there was “undiluted fury among senior members of the royal family and courtiers” about Mr Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament in 2019.
But, he writes: “The Queen’s reaction was actually more sanguine than some. She thought Johnson a roguish and comic figure and took the disaster in her stride. One senior royal aide characterised her approach as, ‘These things happen’.”
The then-Prince of Wales, was “absolutely furious” and “outraged that Boris should treat the Queen like that”, he claims.
Prince William’s aides also “let it be known that in his reign as king there would be ‘more private, robust challenging of advice’ between the monarch and his prime ministers,” it is claimed.
In the book, Shipman relays an alleged conversation between Mr Johnson and King Charles, who had wanted to acknowledge slavery during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Mr Johnson, who was despairing of the “woke” ideology, is said to have replied: “I wouldn’t talk about slavery if I were you, or you’ll end up having to sell the Duchy of Cornwall to pay reparations to the people who built the Duchy of Cornwall”.
The palaces were contacted for comment.
Out by Tim Shipman is published by HarperCollins and is published on Nov 21.
