The feeling among a good few Labour MPs following prime minister's questions today was that things are fast slipping away, that Brown's rally before Christmas was just a false dawn.
Brown did OK against Cameron as the two slugged it out yet again over the economy.
But the prevailing view was that the economic crisis – and Brown's management of it – is no longer working to his and his party's advantage.
In fact, the reverse is now the case, they say. Too many big-money Brown rescue packages have self-evidently not done the job. In their constituencies MPs see and hear a public that is growing cynical of promises to create jobs – and of the prime minister's claims to be leading the global argument.
Cameron's taunt that Brown has not – as he claimed – abolished "boom and bust" is tedious, but it works.
More and more Labour MPs with marginal seats wonder what their own futures hold as the Tories' poll lead lengthens.
Most ominously for Labour, the Blairites are grumbling again.
They are beginning to complain about Brown's grim determination to stick with the economy as the only issue – to the exclusion of anything else.
But the worries extend wider. One Labour backbencher with a majority of around 4,000 told me after PMQs that the party was "reverting to pre-Blair days".
The same MP said she had been in a state of despair after a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party on Monday, which was attended by former party leader Michael Foot and at which there was much talk of Labour's record in government.
"It was the funeral of New Labour," she said.
