The Sun is confidently predicting that Labour's majority would have been even bigger had the election not been delayed by foot and mouth.

A MORI poll conducted on behalf of the paper predicts that if an election happened on May 3 Tony Blair would have been returned with a majority of 227 seats. Voters would have returned 158 Conservative MPs and the Lib Dems would have won 30 seats, the poll suggests.

The paper, which in 1992 claimed that it was "The Sun wot won it", goes a step further by listing senior Tory MPs it believes will be ousted in a "massacre" of the Tory Party.

The list of "doomed" MPs includes Gillian Shepard and Caroline Spelman.