Harry Potter author JK Rowling has donated £1m to the Labour Party as recognition of its record on child poverty.
The donation is a major boost to the cash-strapped party and its leader Gordon Brown as the annual Labour conference starts in
Rowling, whose fortune was estimated at £560m in this year's Sunday Times Rich List, is a friend of Mr Brown and his wife Sarah.
The author wrote the first of her best-selling books about the boy wizard while an impoverished single mother.
In a statement, she said: "I believe that poor and vulnerable families will fare much better under the Labour Party than they would under a Cameron-led Conservative Party.