Campaigners and politicians are calling for a boycott of the UK’s biggest minicab firm after its chairman claimed that cyclists are responsible for accidents simply by taking to the roads and should expect to be hurt by drivers.

John Griffin, founder and chairman of the Addison Lee taxi company, is facing a backlash for using his column in the April edition of the firm’s Add Lib magazine to suggest that cyclists are irresponsible for “throwing themselves onto some of the most congested spaces in the world” and also criticises those who are “up in arms about what they see as the murder of cyclists on London roads”.

Mr Griffin’s column, which calls Britain’s streets an “abyss” for cyclists, comes in the week that he instructed