If press coverage reflects anything of the levels of public interest, it may be said that Britain's June 10th European election campaign is doing slightly better than the gathering crisis in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Which is not to say very much at all. The endless circular arguments over decommissioning have prompted a general switch-off here, with interest likely to build only as we approach Mr Blair's "absolute" deadline for devolution. Moreover, it is the hawkish Mr Blair himself who commands and excites most attention here, as NATO appears to move inevitably toward the commitment of ground troops in the Balkans.
And, of course, if the truth be told, even without the distraction of war, the elections for seats in the European parliament would always be struggling to make headline news.
For while the question of Europe has had a profound impact on domestic British politics since the country's accession to the Treaty of Rome in the early 1970s - it wrecked Labour then, as it sunders the Tories now - the British notoriously don't care much for the European Parliament or who sits in it.
As one Tory campaigner put it: "Most people here wonder what's the point of the European Parliament. Most of the MEPs are anonymous, even I would be hard-pressed to name more than a few."
And he ventured that would be still more the case after June 10th, when Britain's 84 MEPs will be elected for the first time by a system of proportional representation, which will see MEPs elected from regional party lists, and finally break the link between the elected member and his or her constituency.
In the last elections, in 1994, Britons managed an all-time high turnout of just 36.8 per cent, lifting the UK ahead of Portugal (where the election fell in the middle of a public holiday), and the Netherlands (which had had a general election just a month earlier). In all previous contests the UK consistently produced the lowest turnout of all member-states - in the first, in 1979, a staggering 32.7 per cent.
In 1979, the Euro contest was preceded by a number of other elections. In March that year, the Scots and Welsh had referendums on devolution, and the local elections in England and Wales followed in May. The similarities between then and now are obvious. The parties will be hoping voters are not suffering election fatigue.
The change in the electoral system also renders some traditional campaigning methods redundant, with less emphasis on door-to-door canvassing and more on the media battle, telephone polling and the now-ever-present focus groups.
The switch to proportional representation might also mask inevitable Labour losses (the party is defending its best-ever 62-seat share of the Euro seats in 1994). And firm and absolute interpretations of the results will also have to be tempered by awareness that previous European elections have produced significant, if transient, shifts in party support.
That said, June 10th provides the only national contest between the last general election and the next. In fact the 1994 contest almost foretold the result of the general election which swept Tony Blair to power three years later. And it will be in comparison with their 1997 share of the vote that the overall performance of Labour and the Conservatives will be judged.
With New Labour now the pro-European party (in principle for joining the Single Currency, provided it is a success) - and public opinion is still markedly sceptical - William Hague should be on a winner with the Conservatives, the only party set to fight the next election pledged to save the pound (at least for the lifetime of the subsequent parliament).
But for all the country's latent scepticism, it seems unconvinced yet that Mr Blair is bent on "a national suicide mission". And the intrusion of the UK Independence Party and the Pro-European Conservative Party might simply reinforce the electorate's impression of a Tory Party at war with itself.
It almost certainly will be at Westminster if the Tory share of the vote fails to vindicate Mr Hague's attitude toward the euro and - more crucially - fails to foster belief that the party really is on the road to recovery. Upwards of 35 per cent of the vote would give credence to claims of a comeback. Anything less would suggest a party still mired in the 1997 disaster zone and leave Mr Hague - who would like the next election to be a battle for Britain - instead battling for personal survival.