The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, will "do the right thing for the country" when making his decision about calling a general election in the midst of the foot-and-mouth outbreak.
Responding to a plea from the Archbishop of York to postpone calling a general election because of the scale of the crisis, Downing Street said the Prime Minister would listen carefully to all representations.
Mr Blair is expected to declare early next week whether an election will take place on May 3rd, widely forecast as his preferred date.
His officials said he would "do what he believes is the right thing for the country."
The Right Rev David Hope yesterday urged Mr Blair to give "serious consideration" to postponement.
"People are seeing images on the television and in the media of dead sheep being loaded into the huge trucks. The foot-and-mouth crisis is something that is almost overtaking people's lives," he said.
"My question is whether it is possible to focus on some of the broader issues of the election while all this was going on."
As the number of confirmed cases rose to 784 it also emerged that the government will not make a decision on a vaccination policy before Monday.
Downing Street said Mr Blair was "focusing 100 per cent" on foot-and-mouth and would spend the weekend talking to officials and Ministers about such a policy.
A decision had been expected over the weekend, but an announcement has now been put on hold.
There were strong indications that farmers were not convinced vaccination was worthwhile.
After meeting the Agriculture Minister, Mr Nick Brown, yesterday to discuss the proposal, the president of the National Farmers' Union, Mr Ben Gill, said there were still unanswered questions about vaccination.
Farmers have raised serious concerns about the wisdom of such a course since it is likely the animals would have to be slaughtered afterwards and could not be sold for export.
Mr Blair spent the day touring parts of Britain worst affected by foot-and-mouth and praised the combined efforts of the army, farmers and officials to combat the virus.