In 1928, women won a hard-fought and occasionally bloody battle for equal voting rights. In 2003, a civil servant from Stockport won the right not to wear a tie.

We've come a long way, haven't we?

In the 20th century women like Emmeline Pankhurst were being thrown in jail for demanding what should have been a fundamental right in the first place, and in the 21st century we are squabbling about neck wear.

I am sure Matthew Thompson is very proud of his industrial tribunal victory and is currently striding round the Jobcentre where he works with his chest hair defiantly blowing in the breeze.

But surely, deep, deep down somewhere in the nether regions of his now tieless psyche, he must be able to hear a tiny little voice of common sense squeaking: "Who cares?"

Because at the end of the day, who does? There may be other chaps now jumping on the sartorial stagecoach - 40 others at the last count have filed similar claims through the Public and Commercial Services Union - but I would like to hazard a guess that even they don't care very much about the cause: it's the winning that matters.

Even Mr Thompson himself, a poor, wilting little flower who claimed compensation for injury to his feelings, doesn't have anything against ties per se, as he proved by wearing a particularly colourful example at the tribunal hearing. For him, this was simply a matter of principle. But again, I have to ask the question: is this a principle worth fighting for?

Mr Thompson's solicitors might believe this is an important case that "challenges stereotypical assumptions" and is a "victory for common sense".

But isn't it really just a bit of old nonsense, puffed up into becoming "a cause" for no apparent reason?

Some men may claim that casting aside their tie is the equivalent of women burning their bras. But that just doesn't ring true. Women bunged their brassieres on the brazier as a symbolic gesture - they weren't going to be reined in anymore by men or by a bit of frilly elastic. Men, on the other hand, just don't want to wear a tie. Full stop. Next paragraph.

It is not that they feel women have the upper hand at work because they can wear a smart T-shirt instead of a collar and tie. It is not that they believe one gender is trying to squash another by use of a fabric yoke. It is just that they don't want to have to wear a tie if the girls don't have to.

Fair enough. Take it to your bosses and thrash it out. Wear increasingly ridiculous ties to work every day until your manager gives in gracefully or at the very least is temporarily blinded by your multi-coloured neck wear and can't see what the heck you are wearing.

But don't take the issue to court, wasting thousands of pounds and numerous man (and woman) hours, and don't try to make a human rights issue out of a piddly little spat.

We are on the verge of a pointless war instigated by an imbecile in the White House and his increasingly confused lackey at Number 10, and all we can think to protest, debate and discuss in the few fleeting days of supposed sanity we have left is a flimsy piece of fabric that got a backroom civil servant from Stockport hot under the collar.

Is this really the best we can do? Fighting for the right not to fight is a cause I understand.

But fighting for the right to wear an open-necked shirt? Let's forget the tie and get a life instead.

Updated: 12:14 Tuesday, March 18, 2003