Mr William Hague suffered a "double whammy" yesterday on the first full day of Britain's undeclared 10-week election campaign.
The Conservative leader faltered for the first time in his foot-and-mouth campaign against the government, while Mr Tony Blair surged ahead in the polls, despite mounting criticism of the management of the countryside crisis which forced him to postpone the general election.
Speaking in the Forest of Dean, Mr Hague called for the army to be given full operational control of the battle against foot-and-mouth to relieve a "hopelessly overstretched" agriculture ministry.
However, the Tory leader's plan was instantly shot down by the officer commanding military operations in hardest-hit Cumbria. Brig-Alexander Birtwistle said sharply: "No, I don't agree.
"This is a MAFF-led operation and necessarily so. To be frank, I don't want to lead this operation. It would be too much trouble, too difficult to do with the resources I've got."
The rebuff marked a setback for Mr Hague who is generally thought to have performed well during the crisis and to have been "ahead of the game" on key questions such as the original deployment of troops, the need to reduce report-to-slaughter time, and to postpone the county council and general elections.
But that was nothing beside yesterday's Guardian/ICM poll giving Mr Blair a commanding 15-point lead over the Tories, despite a 56 per cent disapproval rating for the way ministers have handled the foot-and-mouth crisis.
Despite the original opposition of a majority of cabinet members and Labour MPs, the poll showed strong support for Mr Blair's decision to postpone the elections - with one in three Labour voters saying they would have liked him to delay longer.
The six-point increase in Labour's lead to 49 per cent of the vote, accompanied by a one point drop in support for the Conservatives on 34 per cent, suggests Mr Hague is failing to make any headway or capital as a result of the countryside crisis Worryingly for Mr Hague, only 60 per cent of Tory voters said he would make the best prime minister, while 85 per cent of Labour voters chose Mr Blair. There was bad news too for Mr Charles Kennedy, who was the choice of just 30 per cent of Liberal Democrat supporters.
Having regard to regional swings the poll suggested Labour on track for a general election victory with a Commons majority of some 150 seats, barely 30 fewer than in 1997. The Daily Telegraph yesterday claimed the deferment of the general election "a victory for William Hague" while the Financial Times said an election might have restored "a sense of perspective".
