After Sir Olly Robbins appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday to give damning evidence about the role Downing Street played in the appointment of Lord Mandelson as British ambassador to Washington, it will be the turn of Cat Little, the most senior Cabinet Office official, to appear before the same group of MPs on Thursday morning.

Eden Camp is hosting the event on Sunday, April 26, in support of Drive It Day—a national celebration of classic cars and motoring heritage.

The event, run in partnership with Coast and County Radio, includes a display of classic vehicles and raises funds for NSPCC’s Childline.

Eden Camp Drive It Day event (Image: Jonny Pye)

Luke Hudman, marketing manager at Eden Camp, said: “Drive It Day is a fantastic opportunity to bring people together through a shared passion for classic vehicles whilst supporting an incredibly important cause.

“We’re glad to be working with Coast and County Radio again, and look forward to welcoming classic car owners and enthusiasts for a brilliant day at Eden Camp.”

Drive It Day was established in 2005, and is now an opportunity to celebrate transport heritage.

Classic car owners are invited to join the display and can enjoy discounted museum entry for just £5 per person.

Eden Camp in North Yorkshire will host a Drive It Day event, inviting car enthusiasts to enjoy vintage vehicles and celebrate classic motoring heritage (Image: Jonny Pye)

All entry fees will be donated to Childline.

Attendees can also support the cause by purchasing official Drive It Day fundraising plaques, available from the official Drive It Day shop.

John Hodgson, station director at Coast and County Radio, said: “We’re delighted to be partnering with Eden Camp for Drive It Day and to support such a worthwhile cause.

“It’s a great opportunity to bring the community together, celebrate classic cars at this iconic museum in North Yorkshire.

“We hope you can join us.”

Tickets can be booked online, with adult admission priced at £17 in advance (£20 on the day) and children at £15 (£18 on the day).

Children under five go free.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Celeste Rivas Hernandez, the 14-year-old girl singer D4vd is charged with killing, died from penetrating wounds to her upper body, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday.

Her death was ruled a homicide in the report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office that had been blocked from release for months.

The autopsy was limited by “extensive postmortem changes” to the body that was dismembered and decomposing when it was found in two bags in the trunk of a Tesla parked in the Hollywood Hills in September.

The examination revealed “two penetrating wounds of the torso with smooth edges that may represent sharp force injuries.” One wound on the upper abdomen penetrated the liver. Another on the left chest damaged her ribs. A tube top she was wearing appeared to be cut in three places.

A judge had ordered the report sealed late last year at the request of law enforcement, but prosecutors agreed this week to allow its release.

The 21-year-old alt-pop singer D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, was charged in the killing Monday. He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, lewd and lascivious acts with a person under 14 and mutilating a dead body. Burke’s attorneys said he did not cause Rivas Hernandez’s death and they will vigorously defend his innocence.

The girl’s parents made their first public comments on Tuesday night, thanking investigators for their work and the people of their hometown of Lake Elsinore, California, for their support. Lake Elsinore is about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles.

“Celeste was a beautiful, strong girl who loved to sing and dance. Every Friday night was movie night and we spent wonderful times together,” Jesus Rivas and Mercedes Martinez said. “We love her very much and she always told us that she loved us. We miss her deeply. All we want is justice for Celeste.”

Prosecutors allege Burke killed Rivas Hernandez because she threatened to report they had a sexual relationship that began when she was 13 years old and he feared it would ruin his rising career.

A criminal complaint alleges he killed her with a sharp object and dismembered the body about two weeks later.

Medical Examiner’s investigators called to the scene where the body was found discovered her torso and head in a black, zippered body bag in the Tesla’s trunk, with arms and legs in a separate trash bag.

Her body had so degraded that examiners couldn’t even determine her eye color. She had braces at the time of her death, and a tattoo that read “Shhh….” on the inside of a finger, according to the report. Two other fingers were missing — as were parts of her arms and legs.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday concluded a marathon series of hearings with federal lawmakers, during which he deflected blame for measles outbreaks and dwindling vaccination rates across the country and touted several initiatives he says are making health care more affordable.

In his testimony to various committees in both the Senate and the House over multiple days this week and last, Kennedy was tasked with defending President Donald Trump’s proposed 2027 budget, which would boost defense spending while cutting more than 12% of funding from Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services.

With lawmakers of both parties raising concerns about programs and research funding being reduced or eliminated, Kennedy acknowledged the cuts were “painful” but said they were necessary to address the federal government’s record $39 trillion deficit.

When Democrats came out swinging, Kennedy became more defiant, even at times screaming his rebuttals — though some of them didn’t align with the facts. He accused multiple Democratic lawmakers of grandstanding, making things up and seeking sound bites over meaningful responses.

Here are takeaways from Kennedy’s gauntlet of budget hearings:

Kennedy deflects blame for Americans not vaccinating

One of the central fights shaping Kennedy’s interactions with Democratic lawmakers was over who bears responsibility for the decline in childhood vaccination rates and measles outbreaks that have ripped across the country over the past year, threatening the country’s measles elimination status. Kennedy’s refrain was consistent: It’s not my fault.

“It has nothing to do with me,” Kennedy said Tuesday of the uptick in measles across the country over the past year. He noted there is a global rise in measles cases, including in other countries like Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

Kennedy, who spent years as an anti-vaccine crusader before entering politics and in 2021 said he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines, disputed accusations that he is anti-vaccine, saying he is “pro-science.”

Throughout the hearings, he sought to focus on HHS’s initiatives unrelated to vaccines — part of a broader administration pivot toward less controversial health topics like nutritious eating.

Kennedy argued that fewer Americans are vaccinating because they lost trust in government recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said he was working to restore that trust. In fact, surveys show trust in federal health agencies has continued to decline during Kennedy’s tenure.

Rep. Kim Schrier, a Democrat from Washington, argued Kennedy’s vaccine views have caused a “spillover effect” that has led to mothers not giving their babies vitamin K injections common at birth to prevent brain bleeding.

Kennedy did get credit, however, from Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who said his work was crucial in helping the state manage a troubling measles outbreak over the past year.

“We would not be on the right side of this outbreak without your leadership,” Scott told Kennedy.

Kennedy forcefully denies there are Medicaid cuts – a claim experts call political spin

Nearly every time Democrats brought up the nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade largely being created through new work requirements for enrollees, Kennedy lashed back to argue there are no cuts to Medicaid.

“Only in Washington is it considered a cut,” Kennedy told New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat, on Wednesday.

Kennedy cited a Congressional Budget Office report showing that Medicaid outlays are estimated to increase by about 47% over the next decade. But experts say his analysis of that report is disingenuous, politicized framing and that the increased spending reflects factors like inflation and a growing population.

“This is an old, sort of tired argument that’s been used by conservatives to justify spending cuts by saying, well, if spending is still growing in nominal terms, somehow there wasn’t a cut,” said Edwin Park, a research professor at Georgetown University. “The federal government is spending nearly a trillion dollars less than it otherwise would have in the absence of the legislation.”

Lawmakers of both parties are concerned about affordability

A major concern for voters in the 2026 midterm elections is affordability — including skyrocketing costs for health care and health insurance. That wasn’t lost on those questioning Kennedy, as lawmakers from both parties raised the issue.

On Tuesday, Rep. Cliff Bentz, a Republican from Oregon, shared the story of his brother who pays $26,000 per year for his health coverage.

“What in the world can I go back to him and say? ‘Hey, the administration is working on trying to drive these prices down?’” he asked Kennedy.

Kennedy, for his part, cited several Trump administration initiatives to lower prices, including the White House’s TrumpRx website for discounted drugs and Trump’s so-called most favored nations deals with pharmaceutical companies.

Pressed by senators, Kennedy pledged to provide details of those deals that didn’t include proprietary information or trade secrets. Some Democrats wanted him to do more.

“Why don’t you do an agreement yourself? he said in a jab to Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. “You’ve had power to do that for 20 years and haven’t done it.”

Kennedy acknowledges some HHS cuts are ‘painful’

To achieve a more than 12% cut of the more than $100 billion HHS budget, the Trump administration is proposing slashing some $5 billion from the National Institutes of Health and cutting a bevy of other programs and initiatives, including a low-income home energy assistance program.

Several senators asked Kennedy why different areas were being cut. NIH cuts, in particular, raised bipartisan outcry.

“There’s an argument to be made that we’re handing China our lunch,” said Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Kennedy was candid that neither he nor others at his agency wanted to see the cuts, which he called “painful.”

“There’s a lot of cuts to the agency that nobody wants,” he said.

Newcastle Wine Week, first launched last year, will run from June 19 to 28 and promises exclusive discounts and events at top venues across the city.

The scheme allows people to purchase a wristband, unlocking half-price wines by the glass and bottle at participating bars and restaurants.

Leah Newman, the East Boldon-based wine expert behind the idea, said: “The whole idea was about making great wine more accessible.

Leah Newman, the East Boldon-based wine expert behind Newcastle Wine Week (Image: Supplied)

“It means that people can really experience wines at a price that isn’t often available and hopefully discover a whole new world.”

Her company Whispering Wine organises the event, and Ms Newman is among the few in the UK to hold a prestigious Wine Spirit Education Trust (WSET) diploma.

This year’s line-up of venues includes Michelin-starred House of Tides, The French Quarter, Kaltur (both Dean Street and High Bridge Street), Dobson and Parnell, Gino D’Campo, Victor Indigo November, Dood, and Blackfriars.

Wristbands also unlock offers at Cavavin, Osters at Gosforth High Street, Lovage in Jesmond, Pique, Gosforth Traders, Colonel Porter’s, Hotel du Vin, Jesmond Wines, Angels Share, and Las Casa Delicatessen.

Ellie Pearson Graham, general manager of Blackfriars, said: “We had new customers who had never been to Blackfriars, we were absolutely mobbed on the weekends.

“This year we will put in more outdoor seating to accommodate Newcastle Wine Week participants and look to offer a selected menu for those customers also.

“Financially it was definitely a success and we look forward to being involved again.”

In addition to discounted wines, wristband holders will have access to a variety of special events, including half price tasting flights and specially curated pairings.

Ms Newman, who also organises wine tasting tours in Europe, launched Newcastle Wine Week last year to make high-quality wine more accessible.

She said the positive response to last year’s event inspired her to bring it back for a second year.

Wristbands are priced at £14.99 and are available from the official website at www.wine-week.co.uk.

The boxer responded to comments Adam Thomas made to his famous brothers

I’m A Celebrity South Africa star David Haye has called Adam Thomas ‘weak’ and has claimed that the former Emmerdale actor ‘doesn’t need therapy’.

The boxer’s latest comments arrive after Adam revealed that he has seen a therapist over what went down on the pre-recorded ITV reality series. David was seen calling out Adam, who has arthritis, for not feeling well enough to do a Bushtucker Trial.

Having already shared a lengthy Instagram post about David’s comments made him feel, Adam spoke about the series with his brothers Scott and Ryan Thomas on their podcast At Home With The Thomas Bros. Noting that he ‘doesn’t regret’ going on the series, Adam said that there were times he had ‘a bit of a tough time in there with one of the campmates’.

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“I know for a fact, I’m not the same person as I was when I went into the jungle, to when I came out. It’s changed me and that’s no over-exaggeration. It’s changed me. I’m in therapy now because of it. It’s f***ed with me mentally because I just thought, ‘How is this happening? I’m a 37-year-old man’. I’m like, ‘How am I letting some other person do this to me in here?’

“I think, in a different environment, on the outside if this happened to you, you’d go, ‘Oh alright, he doesn’t like me, I’m going to leave the situation’, but because you’re in an environment like that, there’s nowhere to hide. You just have to grin and bear it,” he said.

Adam went on to say that he asked his therapist why he was unable to ‘stick up for himself’. Which led to him learning that he didn’t want to ‘bring attention’ to his struggles, and was more focused on putting others instead of himself.

Going on to say that David was ‘mindf***ing him constantly’, Adam told his brothers that he isolated himself away from the group. When David was eliminated, he felt like ‘a weight had lifted’. “If I saw that happening to anyone else, I would stick up for them but I just couldn’t do it for myself. I just became like a little kid again,” he admitted.

However, David has now said what while he ‘didn’t know’ about Adam’s health struggles, he ‘couldn’t care less’. He told The Sun: “Everyone’s got something. If you go to the doctor and say, I don’t feel well because of this, that, the other, they’ll prescribe you something, give you some pills, and now you’ve got this thing to hold on to.

“So any situation that might be uncomfortable, you go, ‘Look, I’ve got this doctor’s note’ and they’ll all feel sorry for me. Adam was jumping around, dancing. I think whatever the trial was, he didn’t like the sound of it, so he’s lying in bed, so I gave him some s*** about that.

“I don’t think it’s bullying. It was just banter to another guy who was nearly 40 years old. Do I care about people that don’t like me saying what I really think? No, I couldn’t give a s***. If a few comments breaks him, how soft is he? How weak, how brittle-spirited is he?”

Pointing out that he’s ‘grown up in gyms’, David said that if their argument is ‘what breaks him’ then Adam ‘comes from a very soft, padded lifestyle’. He added that ‘life gets way tougher than that’.

Bringing up Adam’s brothers, David said: “Someone sent me a video of him doing some TikTok dance with his brothers and that — it was kind of the feminine thing. I’ve got a really cute little chihuahua, so beautiful.

“And she’s not a guard dog, she doesn’t do anything other than just comfort you. Adam’s like a kind of chihuahua. I’m more of a doberman or a boxer or a pit bull or something. He’s the chihuahua.”

Stating that Adam ‘doesn’t need therapy’, David said that he ‘needs to do some push-ups’ and become more involved with ‘males who are powerful’ and ‘don’t sit there talking all the goddamned time about how hard life is’.

I have discovered that you can make potato salad tastier without the extra calories by ditching mayonnaise for a better kitchen ingredient

After months of grey skies, the UK is finally basking in some welcome sunshine, and at this time of year, most of us have little desire to spend hours in the kitchen, turning instead to quick and easy dishes such as potato salad. It’s a personal favourite for its creamy, satisfying qualities, though it wasn’t always that way — the dish can frequently be unpleasantly greasy, largely due to the widespread use of mayonnaise.

It’s never been entirely clear why mayonnaise became such a staple in salads. While it undeniably works wonders in a sandwich, it is predominantly composed of oil and fat, which can weigh heavily on potatoes. After a spot of culinary experimentation, however, it turns out mayonnaise is entirely unnecessary — Greek yoghurt delivers an equally delicious, savoury result. It may sound unconventional as a dressing, but it can completely transform the taste and texture of a potato salad, making it a firm lunchtime favourite.

Why should you use Greek yoghurt to make potato salad?

Greek yoghurt shares the same dense consistency as mayonnaise, yet boasts a higher protein content and considerably less fat, meaning you won’t be piling unnecessary calories onto your plate.

Beyond its nutritional advantages, Greek yoghurt offers a considerably fresher flavour profile and can intensify the taste of any herbs incorporated into your dressing, resulting in a more vibrant dish.

Greek yoghurt is simply far less oily than mayonnaise, which has a tendency to lend potato salad an unpleasant, slippery texture — particularly unappetising during warmer weather. It is a straightforward substitution, yet it has transformed potato salad into a far more pleasurable dish, leaving me genuinely astonished by how delicious it is — so much so that I now prepare it for lunch regularly.

How to make potato salad taste even better

You will need:

• 1kg of baby potatoes
• 300ml of Greek yoghurt
• 20ml of extra virgin olive oil
• Three tablespoons of spring onion
• Fresh chives
• Three teaspoons of balsamic vinegar
• Two teaspoons of Dijon mustard
• A tablespoon of leftover water from the boiled potatoes
• Salt and pepper

While some people opt to steam their potatoes, I favour boiling them, as the starch released into the water can lend your salad dressing a smoother, silkier consistency.

A modest amount of this starchy water makes the salad dressing wonderfully velvety, though be mindful of how much you incorporate, as too much can make it excessively watery.

Method:

To start, I scrubbed the potatoes before placing them into a pot of cold water. I then boiled them for 10 to 15 minutes until thoroughly tender, before draining them.

Subsequently, I allowed the potatoes to cool briefly for two minutes before slicing them in half. At this stage, the potatoes are remarkably soft and can be cut using a fork or spoon.

In a large bowl, I combined all the dressing ingredients, mixing together the Greek yoghurt, Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

I blended everything until smooth, then incorporated a tablespoon of the reserved cooking water from the pot.

I then spent a moment finely chopping the chives and spring onions before folding them into the bowl.

Once the potatoes had sufficiently cooled, I transferred them to the mixing bowl and gently folded them through the dressing until thoroughly coated. Next, I simply served the potato salad on a plate, seasoned it generously with salt and pepper, and my effortless midday meal was complete.

It’s one of the most flavoursome yet satisfying dishes you can prepare without spending hours in the kitchen, which is precisely what makes Greek yoghurt such an invaluable staple to have in the fridge throughout the warmer months.

Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US keeps coming back to haunt him. It has now emerged that Mandelson was granted security clearance by the Foreign Office, despite concerns raised during the
vetting process. Top Foreign Office civil servant Olly Robbins was sacked over these revelations.

Mandelson was controversial long before Starmer appointed him in 2024. A New Labour figure known as the “prince of darkness” due to his reputation as an adept but often ruthless and underhand political operator, Mandelson had already been embroiled in a number of scandals involving allegations of corruption. He was also known to have had a close relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as close business links in China.

Starmer fired him in September 2025 after emails were released showing Mandelson offering supportive messages to Epstein, who faced charges of soliciting a minor at the time. Further emails released by US officials suggested that Mandelson might have passed privileged and market-sensitive information to Epstein during the fallout of the financial crisis. In February 2026, the former ambassador was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He has denied criminal wrongdoing and has not been charged.

Therefore, it is perhaps unsurprising that Mandelson did not pass the vetting process carried out by the Cabinet Office’s UK Security Vetting team. Almost all civil servants are required to go through some form of vetting. But as a top diplomat, Mandelson was subject to the most intensive form of scrutiny. From what is known about the process, red flags were probably raised about Mandelson’s links with Chinese and Russian business interests, though the exact details have not been made public.

Starmer and his allies have argued that Robbins did not tell the prime minister about concerns raised in the vetting process as he should have. In giving evidence to MPs, Robbins said that Number 10 took a “dismissive” approach to the vetting process. He also said that he was under “constant pressure” to approve Mandelson’s clearance due to this being a political priority for Starmer. Mandelson’s appointment was announced publicly before the vetting took place.

The opposition is piling on the pressure for Starmer to resign. But behind speculation about the prime minister’s future stands a deeper set of constitutional questions about accountability and standards in public life.

From Starmer’s perspective, the scandal has revealed a pressing need to improve the independent scrutiny of appointments. He has ordered a review into vetting procedures, and argued that failings lie with civil servants in the FCDO and with the robustness of vetting processes – not with him.

On one level, this defence is an effort to deflect blame. Yet the response also fits with Starmer’s approach to politics as a follower of rules and lover of process.

In arguing for a more robust independent process around vetting in their attempts to avoid blame, Starmer and his allies invoke a longstanding critique of Whitehall culture. This view treats independent, depoliticised scrutiny and checks and balances as key missing links in British politics. Building these would be vital for ensuring transparency and accountability around appointments and politics more broadly.

Since coming to office, Starmer has consistently argued for a rewiring of the British state to modernise the government. Like academics, thinktanks, journalists and former Whitehall insiders before him, Starmer’s view suggests that Whitehall and the centre of the British state operate in an antiquated way. When it comes to accountability and standards, the government arguably lacks proper independent scrutiny and constitutional checks and balances to hold decision-makers to account.

Instead, Whitehall is too reliant on a “good chaps theory of government”, which suggests politicians typically act with the best of intentions and therefore do not need to be subject to independent scrutiny.

Who is responsible?

Critics, echoing Robbins’ testimony, have argued that Starmer and his allies pressed Mandelson’s ambassadorship as a political priority, announcing it before vetting procedures had been completed in order to push through the appointment.

Many have pointed out that Mandelson’s reputation as a potentially suspect character was well known before the release of the Epstein files. Within this narrative, blame for the appointment of Mandelson lies squarely with Starmer.

In a sense, this approach offers a different view of British politics. In terms of appointments – both to top civil service positions and to more political posts – the UK’s approach has been argued to resemble medieval “court politics”. Here, the ruler decides their key advisers on the basis of their own preferences and objectives.

This too implies a lack of proper checks and balances around appointments. But one of the proposed advantages of such a system is that it places accountability and responsibility for decisions clearly in the hands of elected politicians. Britain has a longstanding tradition of individual ministerial accountability.

Starmer, however, is now seemingly weakening this tradition by deflecting blame onto the civil service and its processes. It is this notion of direct political accountability that Starmer’s opponents are invoking when they call for his resignation.

Overall, these two images of British politics are contradictory and indicative of the emergence of an increasingly incoherent form of government. On the one hand, the state has failed to move towards modern and robust independent scrutiny of ministerial decision-making around appointments. On the other hand, politics has shifted away from a culture of clear, individual ministerial accountability.

This leaves Britain in a “worst of both worlds” scenario when it comes to accountability and standards in public life. It has neither robust independent scrutiny, nor clear lines of political accountability. More than anything, the Mandelson vetting scandal reveals the need to fix this broken system.

Isaac Davidson said it “felt surreal” to be invited to Downing Street for the ceremony marking St George’s Day.

The invite followed Isaac cleaning the racist graffiti sprayed on the Dragon House in Foxwood Lane last August.

The racist graffiti daubed on the Dragon House, in Foxwood Lane, on August 29, 2025 (Image: Supplied)

Isaac said he was thanked by the prime minister in Downing Street as Sir Keir Starmer celebrated “service, generosity, and respect” as English values which the nation should celebrate.

“I went in and [the prime minister] did a speech and he said, ‘Where’s Isaac?’” said Isaac, 31, from Foxwood. “I just put my hand up and he thanked me in front of everyone … I couldn’t believe it was happening.”

“I’m still in disbelief, if I’m honest,” he added. “Standing outside 10 Downing Street was something I never imagined, but actually walking through the door and being mentioned in his speech took it to another level.

“It all felt surreal – like a moment that didn’t quite sink in at the time but means even more looking back on it now.”

Isaac, who works for Crystal Clean Windows, said he continues to visit the Dragon House for meals, adding that the takeaway saw an increase in trade after the incident last summer.

A Dragon House spokesperson told The Press it had been “deeply moved by the amount of support and kindness shown to us from the community after this incident”.

‘Time and time again, when times get tough, we pull each other together and we pull each other up,’ says prime minister

Isaac was thanked by Sir Keir, alongside George Sutherland, a volunteer at a food bank in Telford, and Ben Huntley, the nurse who looked after the primer minister’s brother Nick Starmer before his death from cancer on Boxing Day 2024.

“These are three very different stories, all in different parts of England, but they’re bound together by the same values of service, of generosity, and of respect,” Sir Keir said.

“They are examples of people stepping up in their communities, when, frankly, it would be easier in many cases to step back. But they step up.

“They’re exceptional stories, and yet in this country, they feel familiar because you will find them in every community across England.”

The prime minister continued: “Time and time again, when times get tough, we pull each other together and we pull each other up.

“It’s really important we do that, because there’s no getting round the fact that there are voices both here and abroad, who would seek to divide us, who want to set us apart from each other, who want to pretend that in this country, what we really do is to distinguish between people, to find their points of difference, to have a sort of toxic culture of hatred between different individuals, different groups, different communities.”

Sir Keir added: “We reject their division completely, and we will fly our flag proudly. It’s our flag. It belongs to us, and we will fly it for the values that we believe in, and they are the values of the people I’ve named in this room tonight.”

‘I believe partition has failed all of us’

It is “very conceivable” that a referendum on Irish unity could take place by 2030, Michelle O’Neill has claimed.

The Sinn Fein vice president described unity as the “big idea” of her generation, adding she had “not given up” on the poll taking place by the end of the decade.

The republican party’s Ard Fheis will take place in Belfast this weekend with keynote addresses from Ms O’Neill on Friday and party leader Mary Lou McDonald on Saturday.

While the event will cover a number of areas, Ms O’Neill said Irish unity was the “big ticket conversation”.

In an interview with the Press Association, she said: “I think when we look at a lot of the challenges we are facing in today’s world, I think the answers to a lot of challenges that we face are actually in constitutional change.

“And we’re only two years out from the Good Friday Agreement anniversary of 30 years.

“I want to see the fulfilment of that, we were promised a unity referendum, and now we need to see that delivered upon.”

Ms O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s first nationalist First Minister, said while she was co-operating with other parties to make Stormont work, there were “limitations” in the Assembly and Executive arrangements.

She said: “We see a bigger, brighter future.

“We see something that’s more meaningful to people’s lives.

“If we could have constitutional change here, where we break up the link to policy choices in London that are showing a real disregard for people here, Brexit is the best example of all.

“Since that we have had a rolling door of British prime ministers, none of them have fixed the fundamentals around the funding model here.

“None of them have actually acted in the best interests of people here.”

Ms O’Neill added: “I think that shows why we need to take control of our own fortunes, why we need to control our own destiny going forward.

“I think the best answers to a lot of big challenges today is constitutional change.

“I believe partition has failed all of us. There’s so much to be achieved in the years ahead, and I’m certainly up for that. I think that’ll be the real focus of the Ard Fheis.”

Senior Sinn Fein figures have often called for a unity referendum to take place by the end of the decade.

However, unionists in Northern Ireland have claimed there has been no increase in support for Irish unity, while Taoiseach Micheal Martin has previously said he is not planning for a border poll by 2030.

Under the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement, a referendum would be held if the UK Secretary of State believes it is likely that a majority of people in Northern Ireland would vote for Irish unification.

Asked if the prospect of a unity poll by the end of the decade was diminishing, Ms O’Neill said: “No, I don’t give up on that, we have said it should be 2030.

“We’re going to fight two by-elections in the 26 counties over the course of the next number of months.

“We’re going to fight an Assembly election next year, we’re going to have a Westminster election, a Dail election.

“So yes, I still think it’s very conceivable we will have our unity referendum for 2030.

“I think all those elections will demonstrate that change is possible, will demonstrate that people endorse a better future, and we will use all those election opportunities to speak directly to the voters, to ask them to get behind the big idea of our generation.

“I believe the big idea of my generation is Irish unity, and I believe that there’s opportunity to rectify the wrongs of partition.”

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