The decision by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, to postpone local elections in England and Wales - widely reported to have been scheduled by Downing Street strategists for May 3 - has been one of the least best kept secrets of recent days. The postponement - in "the national interest" because of the foot and mouth situation - is further evidence of the belated acceptance by Mr Blair's government of the sheer scale of the disaster the disease has visited upon the British countryside.
As of yesterday, local elections have been pencilled in for June 7 and it is widely assumed that Mr Blair will go the country on that day as well - one year early. Since his election as prime minister four years ago, Mr Blair has had one overriding, all consuming ambition: to see New Labour re-elected and himself installed as prime minister for a second term. In this, Mr Blair is seeking to slay the ghost of failed Labour governments of old, cast out of office by an ungrateful electorate, scornful of what it has judged to be Labour ineptitude, particularly on the economy, and overzealous pursuit of a leftist agenda.
On that front, Mr Blair's record stands up well to scrutiny: the Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, has managed Britain's finances prudently. Soon after Labour's general election victory, the Bank of England was freed from political constraint to set interest rates as it saw fit and not according to short-term political expediency. Mr Brown's most recent budget, while clearly delivered with an election in mind, was generous but not reckless. On other fronts, however, the Blair record is patchy. Inner-city deprivation remains, education is still underfunded, hospital waiting lists are still long and, as rail crash follows rail crash and the government seems more than a little semi-detached on the foot and mouth crisis, there is a wider feeling among the electorate that Britain is not functioning quite as it should. Added to that, Mr Blair has displayed an absence of decisive leadership on the most important European Union question facing Britain - the euro.
Despite these caveats to its record, however, New Labour's lead in the opinion polls stands firm, 13 to 16 percentage points ahead of the Conservative Party, according to the latest samplings. In seeking re-election, Mr Blair's other asset is his main opponent, the Tory leader, Mr William Hague, who, despite an impressive parliamentary performance is not seen by the electorate as a credible prime minister in waiting. Yesterday's announcement heralds what will be, in effect, a 10-week election campaign, though one which remains officially undeclared for the moment. Army diggers are building mass graves in Cumbria and Mr Blair has been to the countryside to empathise with farmers and their families. The prime minister is apparently calculating that after another six weeks, foot and mouth will loom less as a concern in the minds of the electorate. By the middle of next month, he may be expected to call the election formally - no matter what the state of play is in the countryside.