The general election will be postponed from May to June, the BBC has learnt.

Prime Minister Tony Blair made the decision at his country residence Chequers after coming under pressure from leaders of other parties and from within the Cabinet to concentrate on fighting the foot-and-mouth crisis.

An official announcement will be made next week, according to the BBC's political editor Andrew Marr.

County council elections had been scheduled for 3 May, with the same date thought most likely for a general election.

On Saturday Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy became the latest party leader to demand a postponement.

He told the Scottish Liberal Democrats spring conference: "I have come to the conclusion that there should be no general election on 3 May.

"But I also believe the prime minister should tell the country early next week when he intends to hold the election so the uncertainty ends."

Mr Blair may have been finally swayed by a MORI poll for the Sunday Telegraph carried out in the last two days which suggests 63% of voters wanted voting on 3 May stopped. bbc.com

All of which sounds very plausible, assuming that Foot and Mouth disease is quite the plague that the media has led us to believe. Hobie's posting, listed below, casts the disease in another light entirely and consequently throws a rather ominous shadow over the above report. If you haven't read it already it's well worth checking out.

http://www.rumormillnews.net/cgi-bin/config.pl?read=7668