By Claudia Joseph For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 22:53 BST, 4 May 2019 | Updated: 22:53 BST, 4 May 2019
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In public, she has been the soul of discretion throughout her long reign.
But a very different side of the Queen is revealed today with the extraordinary claim that she once jokingly suggested an Arab statesman should be assassinated.
According to a senior diplomat's diary, Her Majesty said she was 'surprised nobody had found means of putting something' in the coffee of the Jordanian king's 'wicked' uncle.
And in a remark that would also raise eyebrows today, the Queen said she didn't 'think it a good idea' for Arabs to go to English public schools.
A very different side of the Queen (pictured with Former Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden) is revealed with an extraordinary claim that she once jokingly suggested an Arab statesman should be assassinated, according to a senior diplomat's diary
The young Monarch was speaking over lunch at Buckingham Palace in 1955, a year before Britain's confrontation with President Nasser of Egypt in the Suez Crisis.
At the time, Britain feared that Jordan's King Hussein, an Old Harrovian aged 19, was