Meanings
- AustraliaCanadaIrelandNew ZealandUKderogatorypluralplural onlygovernmentMembers or supporters of a Green Party who are politically conservative.
A derogatory name for the Greens is "Tories on bikes"; they also oppose building on green belts around cities, and thus inadvertently encourage car commuting, with its attendant car pollution.
2019, Danny Dorling, Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire, Biteback Publishing, →ISBN, retrieved 01 Apr 20212 more examples
The only viable alternative for decades has been The Australian Greens, formerly a protest party, but now a progressive middle-class party. It’s a coalition of Tories on bikes, socially conscious baby boomers who live in architect-designed homes, and millennials who haven’t yet graduated from edgy liberalism to socialism.
2018 September 7, Ivan Mitchell, Daniel Lopez, “The Immodest Victorian Socialists”, in Jacobin, retrieved 01 Apr 2021But lest we forget the Green Party’s concern for the workers who make these cheap clothes in counties such as Bangladesh, the reality is that when it comes to employees’ rights they are merely Tories on bikes.
2020 September 11, Pat Flanagan, “Green Party out of touch with ordinary people and seem to like punishing poor”, in Irish Mirror, retrieved 01 Apr 2021
Origin
So-called due to bicycles being commonly prescribed as an environmentally friendly form of personal transportation.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Tories on bikes. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tories%20on%20bikes
“Tories on bikes.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tories%20on%20bikes. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Tories on bikes,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Tories%20on%20bikes.
Source: Tories on bikes on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.