Flexible working is back in the news again but this time it's probably not caused by just another headline-hungry politician.

I remember as a child in the 1970s reading breathless features about how telecottaging – as it was quaintly known at the time – would change the way we work.

Everybody thought the government would force change but technology sprinted by and the proliferation of mobile computing and communications options drove adoption of new working models with or without the express assent of managers. This change was hurried on by desperation as the disgraceful collapse of roads and public transport made getting into work the urban analogue to the film Deliverance.

The government's contribution to teleworking has largely been to stand back and gawp. External stimulus for change has been confined to the EC, which brought in the Flexible Working Directive of 2003 and the "right to request" flexible working for parents of children younger than six.

The battle lines in flexible working remain fixed. On the "for" side you have the folks who believe it is progressive, environmentally friendly and affords that yearned-for fulcrum: the work-life balance. On the "against" side are those who mistrust the concept, fear it could lead to more red tape and loss of control, and is damaging to the team-working ethos that makes the workplace whole more than the sum of its parts.

The debate was stirred up again this month by Beverley Hughes, the children's minister, who said that flexible working options should be available for all. Was this just another media meme or is there more to it? The latter, I think.

First, Hughes's words appear in Politics For A New Generation: The Progressive Moment, a book that is shortly to be published at the behest of the Institute for Public Policy Research.

The IIPR web site tells us that this tome is "to mark 10 years since Labour's election [and] to outline what the next phase of the progressive agenda should be". In other words – and the IPPR has a nap hand of clunkers, including " progressive agenda/narrative" and "evidence-based research" – it is the form guide to the aims of Gordon Brown and his pals. Messrs Balls, Miliband and Benn all contribute.

Second, Brown could use A Big Idea – a family-centric one that promotes radical change in the workplace and dangles the prospect of less misery time in offices or on trains, planes and automobiles will do nicely.

Finally, with a bit of trimming, the idea makes sense and has a zeitgeist-y feel to it. The crisis in our transport system and the current environmental panic both point to an overdue change.

Politicians only have to look at their own workplace, the House of Commons, to find the ultimate example of ancient working practices that could benefit from flexiwork. And as we have seen before, those who live or work in the capital will happily vote for pretty much anything that improves their journey – even that egregious pub-argument debater Ken Livingstone.