The Westminster consensus on the foot-and-mouth crisis was collapsing last night after Mr William Hague suggested that the Prime Minister might have to postpone his May election plans.
With county council elections scheduled for May 3rd and a general election expected on the same day, the Conservative leader declared: "I don't think it would be right to call an election at a time when there is a national crisis out of control, as there is today."
While stopping short of a direct call for postponement, Mr Hague urged ministers to bring forward the necessary legislation to enable them to put back the elections if the crisis remained unresolved, at least in hardest-hit areas such as Cumbria and Devon.
As troops moved into both counties, the total number of confirmed British cases rose to 379, with a record daily increase of 30.
Mr Hague said it was "undeniable" that there could be serious problems in holding the county council elections on May 3rd.
He received strong backing from the president of the National Farmers' Union, Mr Ben Gill.
"While you have such large areas of the country tied up in restriction zones, it's impossible to perceive how you could have a proper election in those areas," he said.
"Very many more people than farmers there would feel they had been disenfranchised."
However, ministers signalled Mr Blair's determination not to be blown off course, accusing Mr Hague of seeking to make "political capital" out of the crisis while insisting that postponement of the elections would send "the worst possible signal" to the outside world.
The leader of the Commons, Mrs Margaret Beckett, said it was "sad but all too typical of his leadership that, despite a stated bipartisan policy, William Hague has decided he can no longer resist the temptation to try to make political capital out of the foot-and-mouth disease."
While they would keep the local election situation under review, she added: "It is our very strong view, and reflects the overwhelming advice of the tourism industry and business generally, that it would send the worst possible signal to the outside world to call off these elections - mainly that Britain was effectively unable to function."
The Agriculture Minister, Mr Nick Brown, appeared equally adamant that there would be no postponement, stating: "No government has ever cancelled a local election other than in wartime."
Mr Hague disclosed that in Devon some 16 county council wards had cases of foot-and-mouth, and that in half of those the Conservative Party candidate was a farmer. There was, he claimed, "a strong and widespread opinion" in Devon and Cumbria that action should be taken to allow postponement of the poll should it prove necessary.
A poll conducted by NOP showed a narrow majority in favour of the elections going ahead.
After talks with Mr Blair at Downing Street, the president of the Ulster Farmers' Union, Mr Douglas Rowe, claimed the British government was ready to support "regional status" for Northern Ireland, which could lead to an easing of trade restrictions.
Mr Rowe said: "Clearly Northern Ireland is a separate case, having had only one outbreak to date. If we can sustain this low incidence then we hope to press for a regional status for the province."