Prime Minister Tony Blair's desire to take Britain into the euro is rapidly looking more like a pipe dream as his popularity crumbles and the euro zone's economic problems escalate.
It was only three months ago that Chancellor Gordon Brown said his five economic tests for whether Britain should join the euro had not been passed but held out the possibility of revisiting the tests next year.
At the time, Mr Blair promised a "change of gear" in his government's approach to the euro. Brown said that would turn around public hostility to the project, and win over the "ambivalent, apathetic or antagonistic."
But if there has been a change in gear, it seems to have been into reverse. The government has been too busy, struggling with the fallout of weapons expert Dr David Kelly's suicide, to pay heed to the euro.
"It (the euro campaign) is going nowhere and no, it won't be possible to win people over now," said Mr Bob Worcester, chairman of pollsters MORI. "There won't be a referendum in the lifetime of this parliament and I am increasingly sceptical about having one in the next. There's no chance in the short term."
A survey by Barclays Capital last week showed that British anti-Europe sentiment hardened in August with a net 16 per cent of respondents saying they would vote against joining the single currency even if the government recommended joining.
Official policy since 1997 has been that the government is in favour of joining as long as its five economic conditions are passed. Only one of these tests was met in June.Nor does it help the case for joining the euro that the bloc's three largest economies - Germany, France and Italy - all shrank in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, the debate over the interpretation of the Stability and Growth Pact rumbles on with both France and Germany calling for greater flexibility as they again break the rule on keeping deficits below three per cent of total economic output.
Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said last week his country would postpone entry into the single currency even if it voted "yes" in a referendum which is only a fortnight away if the budget pact rules were not sorted out.
Mr Persson, who is campaigning for Swedish euro entry, said a functioning stability pact had to be in place before his country could join the euro. He has also warned that a "no" vote in the referendum would postpone membership for another 10 years.