Britain remained on the sidelines this week as most of the rest of Europe embraced the euro. But Frank Millar in London writes that talk of Cabinet plits over Tony Blair's ultimate intentions are exaggerated.
Will it be off with Queen Elizabeth's head soon after the Golden Jubilee celebrations are past? Or might the whole of Britain's future relationship with Europe turn on a flip of the royal countenance? Busy conducting their first-day conversions and celebrating European history-in-the-making, few outside the UK will have paid much attention to the Royal Mint's own launch this week of a £5 Jubilee Crown celebrating the monarch's 50th year on the throne.
"Amor Populi Praesidium Reg" it proclaims: "The love of the people is the Queen's protection."
This will have struck some as a little optimistic, given opinion polls finding continuing high esteem for the queen coupled with a distinct lack of enthusiasm for her extended family and a definite desire to see the civil list cut drastically.
Certainly the sentiment jarred with the opinions of an East End hairdresser in an Italian-owned barbers in central London on Wednesday morning as he confided to a Canadian client his supreme lack of interest in whether or not Her Majesty's head survived on the face of a British euro.
"All I'm concerned about," he volunteered, "is that we're not going to be propping-up lame duck economies and paying for their high unemployment rates."
As the long-awaited British debate about membership of the single currency finally achieves lift-off, however, some close to the heart of the Blair government think him wrong. Indeed no less a New Labour tactician than Peter Mandelson considers Queen Elizabeth's visage absolutely central to Tony Blair's plan to claim his place in the history books and finally put Britain at the heart of Europe.
"I have a simple prediction based on my experience in Hartlepool during last year's general election campaign," the former Sultan of Spin wrote this week. "Once it sinks in that any British version of the euro coins will retain the Queen's head, just as other nationalities retain the symbols of their sovereignty, public hostility will begin to subside."
Sovereignty. One can almost imagine the groan from Irish punters as they prepare to overtake the other 11 EU countries in cheerful conversion to the euro. Some of them, of course, will conveniently overlook the distinctly nationalistic basis of their own euro-enthusiasm, the desire to escape the bondage of over-dependence on the historic relationship with Britain.
Others - thinking the survival of the Queen, let alone concern for the preservation of her image, to be faintly ludicrous and out-of-date - may better relate to the notion that Britain's ultimate decision could come down to a matter of rivalry and personal ambition.
The brooding Gordon Brown apparently remains determined to have the final say on the Treasury's five economic tests for British membership - and the eurosceptic press is trusting him to halt Mr Blair and enthusiasts like the eloquent Foreign Office minister Peter Hain in their tracks.
Might the Chancellor complete his economic assessment later this year and conclude the economic case unproven, thus leaving the decision to go for a referendum to a third-term Labour government preferably (in his own mind) led by Mr Brown?
Might he facilitate Mr Blair's ambition in return for a (this time) cast-iron assurance that the keys to Number 10 will be his? Or might both quail before unshifting opinion polls and decide, after all, not to risk that third term even to the noble cause of British leadership in Europe? These are among the key questions exercising British commentators this weekend, even as campaigners pray "euro-creep" - the widespread use of the euro alongside sterling in high streets, airports, ferry terminals, hotels, bed and breakfasts, and tourist attractions across the country - will see familiarity breed slow but sure British popular consent.
And if, as both occupants of Downing Street might complain, the questioning is too narrowly focused on the perceived personality faultlines at the heart of this government, well - we all know how the perception developed. In this regard, however, we might do well to consider the words of Mr Mandelson - himself no mean player in past New Labour battles.
John Major, like the eurosceptic press, appears convinced Mr Blair will not risk a referendum in this parliament. Not for nothing, presumably, has Mr Brown been burnishing a sceptical reputation. And there is no doubt a decision by Mr Blair to go for membership of the single currency risks the alliances, underpinned by previously Tory-supporting newspapers, which guaranteed him two successive landslide victories.
However, Mr Mandelson - who apparently remains close to Mr Blair, despite that second enforced resignation from the cabinet - appears convinced the Prime Minister is bracing himself to "seize the chance" of holding a referendum during the present parliament. Moreover, he predicts confidently, Mr Blair will not await a green light from the opinion polls, and that the Chancellor will not stand in his way.
In an important article in the Financial Times, he claimed the tensions created during the government's first term arose from the suspicion that people like himself were seeking "not just to advance the case for British membership but to accelerate entry".
This mistaken perception, he allows, "caused understandable irritation among Treasury ministers who wished to maintain full control over the timing and conditions of entry".
Mr Mandelson acknowledges Mr Brown's determination to maintain his say remains undiminished. However, he cautions those savouring the prospect of "a fight to the finish" between the occupants of Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street: "If anyone hopes that the Prime Minister and his Chancellor will jeopardise the unity, and therefore the durability, of the government in this way, dream on."
And, he ventures: "Mr Brown is a conviction politician with a strong record of pro-European sympathies. I believe the Chancellor worked out a long time ago that Britain's interests lay in Europe, and in its single currency, as long as the timing of entry were right."
Mr Mandelson, of course, might have got it wrong. Knowing the history of his relationship with Mr Brown, some will fancy an attempt here to bounce the Chancellor (in which case the Sunday newspapers might carry a barely-coded riposte). True, too, the questions of timing and economic convergence still leave Mr Brown and Mr Blair a way out.
Yet the contention that its two most important members will not tear the government asunder on this issue carries the simple ring of common sense. And if Mr Hain over-egged things slightly this week - "I doubt it in the end it will be possible to run a sort of parallel-currency economy" - Mr Blair himself has done little to dispel the impression that he now thinks British membership "inevitable."
All of which presents a dilemma for the Conservatives, battered by defeats into virtual silence on Europe while desperately trying to convince voters they have other hymns to sing.
If Labour maintains this pace, Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith must quickly rediscover his voice.