Leading Article: Old battles

NOSTALGIC TIMES, currently: it must be something to do with all these endless lists of significant this, significant that and significant other interminably marking the fin de millenium, allied to an understandable nervousness about the new one. Suddenly, battles long thought won and lost are being fought all over again: the little Anglo-French difficulty dies down, for example, only for us to be back in the heady days of A Woman's Right To Trousers, with Eurostar security staff rapidly following on from a trousered Professional Golfers' Association employee in demands for equal treatment on the lower limb interface.

So, what next: Girl Exits Savoy In Short Skirt Fury? Turn To Page Three For Today's Super Stunna? Charlie Dimmock In Put Bra Back Order? In fact, The Sun, remarkably, still has topless models on the eponymous page, even though their future is said, yet again, to be under review; but, at his AGM yesterday, Rupert Murdoch showed all the wariness of an old hand at the trend game. Perhaps he's also noticed that John Major's memoirs are a surprise best-seller. If this carries on, it may not be long before there's an attempt to reinstate the practice and policies of John's prime- ministerial predecessor. Wait a minute, though...