It is generally accepted that politicians carry a greater responsibility than the average person to lead by example – whether it's by not fiddling their expenses or not sleeping with their secretaries if they espouse family values. But does this responsibility really extend to adherence to a non-existent law?
Before he became mayor of London, Boris Johnson wrote that he refused to wear a cycle helmet on the grounds that he didn't like "to be lured into any false sense of security" – there are studies suggesting helmeted riders take more risks than those without. But after taking office in 2008 Johnson capitulated to the health and safety police and bought an "undignified plastic hat". He could not live with himself, he said, if people started to copy his "helmetless insouciance" and thereby put themselves in danger. He was also fed up of people tutting at him at traffic lights – or in the Evening Standard.
David Cameron, too, eventually learned that it's easier to give in to the helmet brigade than rail against them. When he first became opposition leader – those honeyed days when he didn't have to fill his panniers because his chauffeur was in pursuit – Cameron was occasionally photographed bare-headed, or with his helmet dangling from the handlebars (the cycling equivalent of carrying condoms but refusing to wear them because it "just doesn't feel the same"). He wouldn't dare these days.
All of this is ridiculous. It is not a legal requirement to wear a helmet in Britain (though Northern Ireland is on the road to introducing such a law). If Norman Baker was not wearing a seatbelt or had run a red light he could be rightly admonished. But to criticise him for exercising a personal, legal choice is like chiding Andrew Lansley for eating cake when he is health secretary – daft.
Helen Pidd's cycling guide, Bicycle, is published by Penguin.
