When the Conservatives were last in power, ministers would tell the unemployed to “get on their bikes” to look for work.
Now, in the green-friendly Lib-Con coalition, bicycles could start to supplant Jaguars as ministerial transport.
Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat minister for cycling, walking and buses, has become the first member of the government to receive an official Brompton folding bike.
He has asked his civil servants to study the possibility of the British-made cycles, which can be carried on trains and buses, being made available to other ministers.
Baker’s instruction, which follows Cameron’s decision to reduce the number of official cars available to ministers and order them to abandon first-class rail travel, has bemused civil servants, as there is nothing in their civil