Boris Johnson has dismissed claims the late Queen joked about him quitting as PM as “malicious tittle-tattle”.

Elizabeth II said “at least I won’t have that idiot organising my funeral now” after accepting his resignation as prime minister, according to a new book.

The royal was claimed to have made the comment “to amuse” others during a gathering of family and her closest aides at Balmoral two days before her death in September 2022.

But Mr Johnson told GB News: “I think it’s highly unlikely she said that because, of course, no prime minister organises the monarch’s funeral.

“It’s done by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. I think it’s possible that there’s malicious tittle-tattle.”

The claim was made in political journalist Tim Shipman’s new book Out.

He wrote: “The courtier explained that the Queen’s final days had been happy ones.

“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.”

Mr Shipman also claimed the late Queen said Mr Johnson was “perhaps better suited to the stage”.