Three long decades ago Norman Tebbit, a British politician, became infamous for saying that in the 1930s his unemployed father “got on his bike” to look for work. It was meant to be sensible advice. But “Onyerbike”, as Mr Tebbit came to be known, sparked fury because many unemployed people did not want to move to new areas.
Echoes of this are playing out, this time in Virginia. Hillary Clinton has infuriated coal miners in the Appalachian region by suggesting during her presidential campaign that her environmental policies will put “coal miners out of jobs”. She then tried to make amends by pledging $30bn to promote measures such as retraining; as the Financial Times reported this week, some miners are becoming software engineers.
This sounds reasonable but there is a hitch: Appalachia has few software jobs. So far, former coal miners seem unwilling to get on their bikes — or even into their pick-up trucks.