AS WE predicted yesterday, the Settle-Clitheroe foot and mouth flare up caused a major last week row in the general election campaign - and allegations that a massive new cull has been put on hold until after the polls.

Rumours of such a cull have been circulating in the countryside for weeks but yesterday Tory leader William Hague - whose own North Yorkshire home was once at the centre of a disease cluster - demanded that the Government "come clean" on its plans.

And he was backed up today by the distinguished epidemiologist Prof. Richard North, who claimed that a further six million animals might be killed after the election is over.

If such apocalyptic forecasts are true, the Dales/Lancashire border area between Settle and Clitheroe would face slaughter on an ever greater scale because, as the Government chief vet Jim Scudamore admitted today, this latest cluster was a major cause of concern.

The Government, however, struck back to deny the claims saying they had no foundation.

One tiny crumb of hope emerged for farmers in the Settle rectangle: there was only one outbreak in North Yorkshire yesterday - near Ripon - but there were five more in Cumbria.