But this is not the first time that beardism has become a workplace issue. Margaret Thatcher as prime minister famously never allowed men with beards in the Cabinet. She didn't have any women Cabinet ministers either, but that's another story.

Computer giant IBM also operated a "no beards" policy for many years, while the Disney Corporation only relaxed its ban on facial hair in Disneyland as recently as the year 2000. Not quite sure how the seven dwarves coped.

Not that Disney has gone all the way. It now permits neatly trimmed moustaches, while beards, goatees and shaggy sideburns remain on the banned list.

Curiously enough, the ban was originally introduced by the moustachioed Walt Disney himself back in the mid 1950s.

The fightback in the UK is led by the Beard Liberation Front, which says discrimination on this issue is also an indicator of pretty Neanderthal attitudes in other areas. You think we're making this up? Check the link.

A ban on beards would also thin out the ranks of professional thinkers no end, as this page on great beards in philosophy demonstrates.

Top marks, though, to the Salvation Army for its Wear a Beard to Work Day, based not just on biblical precedent but on a claim that: ""In 1907, 86% of Salvation Army members censused admitted to having a beard – it was almost part of the uniform."

Particularly impressive is the downloadable beard offered on the website. Of course, the fact that Wear a Beard to Work Day was launched on April 1 is surely a coincidence.

Workers of all lands unite – you have nothing to lose but your facial hair.