010512 Blair Says Cattle Disease is Near End

London - Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Britain was in the home stretch of its race to contain a ruinous epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease, prompting widespread forecasts that early next week he would call a June general election.

Last month, as Britain's worst recorded outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease ravaged herds, damaged tourism and threatened a plague of political troubles, Mr. Blair was forced to postpone elections rather than face taunts that he was placing his New Labor Party's electoral interests ahead of the travails of a nation in crisis.

The prime minister has been under pressure to pronounce victory over the disease, not only for electoral reasons but also to try to lure back the foreign tourists, many of them Americans, who have been avoiding Britain because of the outbreak.

With the number of animals slaughtered approaching 2.5 million and the daily incidence of new cases of foot-and-mouth falling, Mr. Blair said the disease, which affects cloven-hoofed animals like sheep, cattle and pigs, was retreating. "The battle is not over yet," Mr. Blair said,adding that he believed the country was in the home stretch. "We are getting the disease under control," he said.

Political analysts took his remarks to mean that the last obstacle to a June 7 election had been removed. That is the date Mr. Blair has set for the local elections he postponed. In Britain's political code, the date of the local vote is regarded as the date for general elections.

Asked if an election was in the offing, Mr. Blair told a news conference: "I'm not going to breach the golden rule: don't start talking about general elections unless and until an election is called."

But, he said, "We are in a new phase of the disease now."

The authorities said 2.4 million animals had been slaughtered and destroyed, and, for the first time in weeks, there was no longer a backlog of animals to be culled. Eight new cases today raised the total of farms infected since the disease was diagnosed on Feb. 19 to 1,537, predominantly in Cumbria in the northwest, Devon in the southwest and parts of Wales. The level of new cases has fallen from 40 a day just a few weeks ago, but has not been fully eradicated, Mr. Blair said. "We will not slacken our guard against foot-and-mouth," he said.

Such has been the scale of Britain's all-consuming battle against the disease, deploying thousands of government veterinarians and even the army, that Mr. Blair called it "probably been the biggest peacetime logistical challenge the army has faced."

"The scale of combating foot-and- mouth disease," he added, "has far exceeded, for example, even the logistical demands of the gulf war."

The onslaught has left parts of the British countryside scarred with pyres and mass burial sites for dead animals.

While Mr. Blair cautioned against complacency in the effort to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease, his announcement shifted the nation's attention firmly to an election.

"The waiting is almost over," said William Hague, leader of the opposition Conservatives. "If Tony Blair decides to go to the country next week, and all the signs are that he will, we will be ready for him."

Under electoral rules, Mr. Blair has until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week to make an announcement four weeks before a June 7 poll. He is not obliged to call an election until May 2002, but has long favored an earlier vote to realize Labor's elusive dream of governing for two consecutive terms.

The timing of the original vote reflected a calculation that a May election would permit New Labor to benefit from Britain's economic upswing, low unemployment and promises of benefits to help poor families.

The argument for an early vote has become all the more compelling with the risk that the slowdown in the American economy will have repercussions in Britain, which is especially vulnerable because of high United States investment levels. If Mr. Blair can go into a campaign casting himself not only as a guardian of prosperity, but also as the conqueror of the foot-and-mouth epidemic, his ratings are likely to be even higher than now.

Opinion surveys show Labor maintaining a persistent double-digit lead over the Conservatives, contradicting Mr. Hague's assertion that a vote in June would be "one of the hardest-fought election campaigns in modern history."

A MORI opinion survey, published yesterday in the pro-government Sun tabloid, predicted a June election would expand Mr. Blair's parliamentary majority to a whopping 227 from 170. Other opinion surveys have placed Labor ahead by 18 per cent, despite criticism among farmers and from the Conservatives of the government's handling of the foot- and-mouth crisis.

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