Former Tory donor Arron Banks hands Ukip £1m
On the day David Cameron delivered his pitch for a Conservative majority government in 2015, Ukip has landed £1m from former Tory donor Arron Banks.
This afternoon at a press conference in Bristol the latest Conservative supporter to jump ship to Nigel Farage's eurosceptic party said he had originally intended to give £100,000.
There had been widespread speculation Ukip was planning to unveil the defection of another Tory MP, but the Westminster press pack were left disappointed.
The announcement came in the wake of what some commentators called David Cameron's best ever conference speech.
On Saturday, Tory MP Mark Reckless announced his defection to a jubilant Ukip conference. Douglas Carswell switched parties in August, triggering a by-election in his Clacton constituency.
While unfortunate for the Conservative party, the donation is unlikely to take much attention away from David Cameron's address to the Tory faithful, where he committed a future Conservative government to raising the personal tax allowance to £12,500, and lifting the threshold for the 40p higher rate of tax to £50,000.
In an attempt to rebuff attacks by Ed Miliband at Labour's conference last week, the Prime Minister reiterated his pledge to ring-fence NHS spending.