LONDON -- The Labour government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Tony Blair, has gained a second term of office. The conservative opposition has been utterly defeated and its leader, William Hague, has duly "fallen on his sword" by resigning.

These are dramatic events in the world of politics, but does anybody really care? The overall vote for the British general election fell to a record low level of 59 percent of the actual electorate. TV audiences viewing the results as they came in shrank from 11 million to under 8 million.

The truth is that the whole election event was seen from the start as a foregone conclusion. Moreover, no great issues of belief or ideology seemed at stake. Both major parties appeared caught up in an auction of promises to spend more and invest more in Britain's decrepit public services.

As usual in modern, media-driven politics, the question of how all these extra resources, so freely promised, were to be created and where the money was to come from in the first place took a back seat. It hardly seemed to have occurred to Labour's victorious campaigners that past lack of investment in hospitals, schools, roads and railways arose from past lack of cash, and that until Britain gets a lot richer its public services will remain hopelessly underfunded.

Cheerfully promising to spend more of other people's money wins votes; warning about the desperate shortage of engineering skills, the need for more industrial innovation, harder work and much more enterprise does not. Hence these things are forgotten until the bills start coming in, as they will.

There was, however, one fundamental issue that the Conservative leader tried to raise, but that the voters clearly did not wanted mixed up with party politics and electioneering. This issue was, and is, the future of the pound vs. the euro.

Hague tried to campaign with a slogan of "Save the Pound." But although 70 percent of the country shares his doubts about joining the euro, the theme just did not catch on during the campaign. Consciously or subconsciously, the British public sees this issue as a separate battle -- and one that, far from being settled and over, is just about to begin.

In contrast to voter apathy, the financial markets have already begun to anticipate events and show a lively interest in the coming struggle. The pound has been zooming down against the dollar as financial experts reckon that, with Labour victorious, the pound's entry to the euro will now inevitably come and that it will have to be at a much lower pound-euro exchange rate than at present. The reasoning is that Blair will use his enormous majority as a launching pad for persuading the British public of the euro's virtues.

Having turned round public opinion he will proclaim that certain economic "tests" have been satisfied and that the British economy has duly converged with the rest of the euro-zone. He will then go for a referendum on joining and win it -- and that will be the end of the pound. Industrialists, it is believed, will be delighted with the new certainty of a fixed-for-ever exchange rate, still more Japanese and other foreign investment will pour in and the doubters will just have to "lump it and like it." All this is planned to take about two years.

There are, however, a number of serious snags in this happy scenario.

First, the euro itself continues to look very sickly and commands little investor confidence. Second, a weaker pound -- if it can somehow be massaged downward, which will be difficult enough -- means higher import prices, more inflation, more wage demands and higher pressures to constrain public spending, just when much more spending has been lavishly promised.

Third, the opening months of next year are set to be a period of euro chaos as the new currency is actually introduced and millions of Europeans struggle with the complicated conversion rates from old francs, lira and marks into euros. Persuading the already hostile British to join this quarrelsome club, with its sinking currency, is going to be even harder than at present.

Fourth, the deep British skepticism is not just based on economic fears. It is rooted in a suspicion that joining a single currency is a huge step toward European political union -- a goal associated with being bossed around by Brussels bureaucrats and centralizers, and therefore thoroughly disliked.

Fifth, euro-doubts are not just confined to defeated Conservatives and small businessmen. They run through all parties and all sections of the community. Blair has just appointed a new foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who is far more hardheaded than his predecessor, Robin Cook, and said to be strongly skeptical about the whole euro project and early British involvement in it.

Finally, the whole European Union scene is looking shaky. The recent Treaty of Nice, which was meant to carry forward enlargement of the Union to include the new applicants from Central Europe, has been blocked by a hostile referendum in the Republic of Ireland. It is now back in the melting pot. France and Germany seem increasingly at odds about the future shape of the Union. Italy is now governed by a leader, Silvio Berlusconi, who also doubts the benefits of still more European integration.

So with all this working against euro membership, the idea that a triumphant Blair can somehow arouse British enthusiasm for the euro looks even more doubtful after the election, not less.

The financial and economic experts are therefore probably wrong to assume it is bound to happen soon, and the skeptical British public is probably right to pick its own ground to fight this battle, outside normal party politics.

Most people in Britain want a referendum and most people want it to deliver a resounding "no" to joining the euro -- which is probably why the new Labour government will postpone the issue as long as it can, and why, despite the decisive outcome of the election, British business will have to go on living with indecision and uncertainty.