The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Manchester

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will seek to shore up his authority Sunday on the first full day of his Labour Party's annual conference despite a budding rebellion against him.

Brown, who served as his predecessor Tony Blair's finance minister for 10 years, used a brief opening session on Saturday to argue that he has the experience and determination to see Britain through troubled economic times.

He also signalled to rebels that it would be foolish to strike against him following the financial turmoil which in Britain saw the takeover of HBOS, the country's biggest mortgage lender, by rival Lloyds TSB Thursday. Brown told delegates "all our efforts, all our undivided efforts, all our energies, all our determination" should be focused on the business of government, vowing to do "whatever it takes" to sort out the financial system.

The speech, which drew a standing ovation, was his first showpiece address since four lawmakers who spoke out against him were forced out of their jobs and 12 declared their support for a leadership contest earlier this month.

Brown's ruling centre-left Labour has trailed the main opposition centre-right Conservatives led by David Cameron by up to 20 percentage points recently, but the gap has closed to 12 points, according to a YouGov opinion poll in the Sunday Times.

The party received a boost Saturday when Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, a personal friend of Brown, donated one million pounds (1.3 million euros, 1.8 million dollars) to Labour, which is nearly 18 million pounds in debt.

"I believe that poor and vulnerable families will fare much better under the Labour Party than they would under a Cameron-led Conservative Party," said Rowling, a struggling single mother when she penned the first Potter book.

Senior government ministers rallied around Brown before the conference including Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who penned an article some saw as a leadership manifesto in July and is frontrunner to take over should Brown quit.

Miliband told the Daily Mirror newspaper that the conference should be about Labour showing "a strong, determined, clear, unified face.

"I don't think it's the time for a leadership election,"