EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Oh Lord! Conrad Black has a pop at the Queen by saying Her Majesty ‘lacks charm’

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Disgraced media mogul Conrad Black has form for criticising the Queen.

And even now, as the nation prepares to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee, the former jailbird has targeted the 95-year-old by saying she ‘lacks charm’, is ‘not a spectacular monarch’ and ‘not a riveting public speaker’, nor a ‘great innovator’.

Lord Black, 77, even likened her legacy to a departing big top act. ‘Though she has not been a spectacular monarch, this Queen’s achievement will be like that of a great circus performer whose talents are best appreciated after departing the stage,’ says Black.

Despite praising the Queen’s seven-decade tenure as ‘one of selfless and unpretentious duty’, he says she has lacked charm. ‘The Queen is not a riveting public speaker and has not been a great innovator,’ he writes in an article for Canada‘s National Post.

This is not the first time that Canadian-born Black, who was released from a U.S. jail in 2012 after serving three years for fraud, has turned his opprobrium on the Queen.

As disclosed in this column a few weeks ago, he vented his disapproval of her ‘abandonment’ of Prince Andrew after it was announced that her son would fight his sexual assault charges as a private citizen.

Black declared that he thought it was a ‘disgrace’ for the monarch ‘to have withdrawn from him all the dignities exercised ex-official for centuries by the second son of the reigning monarch’.

The former Telegraph owner, who was pardoned by President Trump in 2019, balanced his critique of Her Majesty with glowing praise.

He wrote: ‘She was never a swashbuckling, rabble-rousing or otherwise proselytising monarchist, but she has steadily surmounted all the ostensible demotions and trivialisations of the monarchy over the past 70 years.’

No doubt she’ll be flattered.

Love is in the air for Jude’s girl

While most people celebrated St Valentine’s Day by buying roses and booking candlelit dinners for their loved ones — Jude Law’s daughter, Iris, had other ideas entirely. 

The 21-year-old Burberry model marked the day by having a heart shaved into the side of her short platinum blonde hair. 

‘Love is everywhere,’ she says about her edgy haircut. 

I’m sure Iris’s new do received the seal of approval from her 23-year-old artist boyfriend Jyrell Roberts.

The Ronsons’ multi-coloured swap

Mark Ronson and his actress wife, Grace Gummer, are celebrating the gender neutrality of their marriage by dressing up as one another. 

The record producer, 46, and Gummer, 35, who is the daughter of Hollywood’s Meryl Streep, swapped every part of their out fits down to their shoes, from his lime green blazer to her sunglasses. 

‘We switched outfits because she’s the best ever and we share everything,’ says Ronson. 

I wonder if they swap their underwear, too.

Hopkins: I will keep going till I die on the job

At the grand age of 84, Sir Anthony Hopkins is showing no signs of slowing down — especially when it comes to his art. 

Hopkins, who won Oscars for his roles in The Silence Of The Lambs and The Father, reveals he would rather die doing the job he loves than retire — and he insists he’s received his wife’s blessing to do so. 

Hopkins says of his third wife Stella Arroyave, 65, whom he married in 2003: ‘She once said to me: ‘Let me ask you — do you want to die as an actor? Do you want to keep going until you drop dead?’ 

‘I said: ‘I guess so.’ She said: ‘Well, that’s good then if it’s really what you want to do.’

News just in, Reeta slams BBC elitism

Is this another nail in the coffin for the BBC’s licence fee? She’s normally cool as a cucumber on screen but newsreader Reeta Chakrabarti reveals off-screen that she is irritated by the corporation’s elitist culture. 

‘The newsroom is unrecognisable from the way it used to be when I started out in terms of gender. But sadly that’s not true of ethnicity or social class,’ she confides in me.

‘They really do need to change as we need more working-class people from poorer backgrounds. The product will be much better if we are properly representative of the whole country.’

As excitement grows for the new Downton Abbey film, it appears some of the crew got rather carried away during filming. 

The Countess of Carnarvon, the real-life chatelaine of Highclere, reveals one of the two pillars in the stately home, near the Hampshire-Berkshire border, was damaged. ‘These things happen from time to time, and the film company was excellent about accepting responsibility,’ says Fiona Carnarvon. 

‘But the next task was to find the right craftsmen to repair it.’ She has given the job to her designer pal Sarah Morris. Watch this space

Billie thinks it’s a sin that Lucy didn’t win

One could be forgiven for thinking Billie Piper’s choice to wear a bright green trouser suit for the Writers Guild Awards was to honour scriptwriter Emerald Fennell.

But Billie, 39, was in more of a supporting role for her playwright friend Lucy Pebble, 41, who was nominated for their drama I Hate Suzie, in the Best Long Form TV Drama category at the awards, which took place at the Royal College of Physicians. 

Sadly, Pebble lost out to Russell T. Davies’s C4 series It’s A Sin. 

Meanwhile, Emerald, 36, was presented with the award for Best First Screenplay for her Oscar-winning #MeToo film Promising Young Woman.