The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has given the strongest indication yet that he will not allow the foot-and-mouth crisis to govern his general election plans.
As the UK's total number of confirmed cases rose to 422 early last night and the crisis dominated business at Westminster, Mr Blair said he would listen carefully to those advocating the postponement of county council elections scheduled for May 3rd.
However, during lengthy exchanges with the Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, Mr Blair gave no indication that he intended to bring forward the necessary legislation to enable postponement if that became necessary.
Instead, Mr Blair demanded of Mr Hague "Until when? one month, two months, six months?" Postponement he argued, would send out the signal that Britain was "closed for business" with further damaging consequences for the tourist industry. And in direct answer to Mr Hague, and to loud Labour cheers, Mr Blair declared: "Britain is not in a state of quarantine."
During a subsequent Commons debate the shadow agriculture minister, Mr Tim Yeo, declared Mr Blair "ignorant" of what was happening in the country.
Echoing Mr Hague's call for greater deployment of troops, Mr Yeo claimed the crisis was "spiralling out of control" with "more than 100,000 animals awaiting slaughter and more than 80,000 carcasses rotting in the open air".
During exchanges with Mr Hague, Mr Blair said it was important to bear in mind that less than 1 per cent of the country's livestock had been put to slaughter as a result of the foot-and-mouth outbreak.
While he would consider Mr Hague's proposal for an emergency scheme giving struggling rural businesses loans of up to £10,000 sterling to help them through the crisis, Mr Blair told MPs: "What those rural businesses most need is . . . custom, business, trade, people coming into the countryside and realising there is no reason why they shouldn't go into the countryside and resume normal tourist activities."
Earlier, the Agriculture Minister, Mr Nick Brown, denied the British government knew about the foot-and-mouth outbreak nearly two weeks before the first confirmed case at an abattoir in Essex on February 20th.
His comments came as it emerged that in January Ministry of Agriculture officials questioned timber merchants in Staffordshire about the availability of wood for burning animals. The Ministry of Agriculture said the inquiry related to the purchase of wood to burn pigs infected with swine fever last year but had prompted animal health officials in Staffordshire to review emergency procedures for foot-and-mouth in the event of an outbreak.
Mr Brown told the Commons Agriculture Select Committee: "We did not know of foot-and-mouth in this country at a time earlier than reported to Parliament. It has been reported overseas that there has been some deliberate concealment - there was not."
As the Inland Revenue and Customs officers promised a "sympathetic approach" towards struggling businesses, the Welsh Economic Development Minister, Mr Michael German, urged creditors to show sensitivity during the outbreak.
Speaking after talks with the major banks, insurance companies and lenders, Mr German said it was important that creditors showed understanding of the hardship faced by the rural community in Wales as the full impact of foot-and-mouth took hold.