For someone so seriously and sincerely concerned with public affairs, Prince Charles sometimes has a hilariously tin ear for how his pronouncements will be heard. We learned yesterday that, as a result of an environmental audit he had ordered on his household (including his homes in London, Scotland and Gloucestershire), he is acquiring two bicycles for his London residence, Clarence House. But not for himself and Camilla. These bikes are intended for his courtiers, who are thus encouraged to make journeys in the capital by bike.

There is a whiff of hypocrisy about this measure. While Charles is also planning to drop his habit of arriving everywhere by chauffeur-driven car and even helicopter and travel instead by ordinary commuter train, the order to his employees to get on their (or even his) bikes has an air of “Let them eat cake”. The Prince of Wales has rejected the idea of giving up his fleet of cars, including an Aston Martin, Jaguar and Range Rover. And we’ll have to see whether the prince can wean himself off his extravagant private-jet habit.

Defenders of the monarchy often tell us that we need our royal family because of its symbolic value: in ceremonies such as the Queen’s speech, it provides a spectacle of national heritage and tradition that secures the constitutional process and guarantees political stability in a way that, we are told, a presidency and written constitution could never hope to achieve. But if we must have this expensive emblemology, then let us get value for money.

By adopting a public stance on tackling global warning, Prince Charles is clearly willing to take a stance the rest of the royal family find uncomfortable. But only so far: when it comes to putting bums on saddles, the heir to throne seems content to maintain a distinctly unmodern upstairs-downstairs approach to the challenge of climate change.

But if we must have our monarchical symbols, then it’s reasonable to expect them to practise what they preach. Isn’t it about time we had our own “bicycling monarchy”?

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