There are some things we just can’t beat – as Liz Truss found out

Sometimes reality bites hard. On Thursday afternoon I was tapping away at my laptop when I heard a commotion at the front of my house. Rubbernecking from the landing window, I saw that a bus had parked on the street and that another bus was in the process of driving around it, ostensibly on the wrong side of the road. At the same moment, a car travelling on the correct side of the road decided to come alongside the stationary bus too. There followed a standoff.

The bus driver gestured for the car to move back; the car driver waved frantically at the bus to do the same, getting out from his seat and onto the road to make his case ever more clearly. The gesticulations soon became angry, expletive-ridden shouts. The man driving the car, foul-mouthed as he was, had a technical point. He was in the correct lane, and in principle had the right of way. What’s more, as he was keen to point out, the bus hadn’t f***ing indicated.

On the other hand, as the bus driver noted in strong tones – and to the delight of the schoolkids on board – the road behind the car was clear, whereas behind the bus was another bus and about half a dozen other vehicles. After a few minutes of the drivers effing and blinding at each other, the man from the car retreated to the comfort of his large Jaguar, adamant that he was not going to move. The bus driver plainly held the same view.

Nothing moved for approximately 45 seconds. Then, in a huge not surprise, Jag man reversed 20m to let the bus come through, before himself tearing down the road at high speed. In a stalemate between a bus and car, there is only one realistic outcome.

I wondered if this was a bit how Liz Truss had felt earlier in the day when she breezily approached a series of interviews on regional BBC radio stations, only to discover she had walked into a hurricane.

It remains hard to work out whether the prime minister’s appalling performances were a consequence of patronisingly assuming that the journalists asking the questions would be easy to handle because they work on local stations. If so, Truss clearly has no idea about the enduring strength of regional news media in this country. Maybe, however, she genuinely felt well-prepped, in which case she should either get better advisers or recognise that no level of preparation will enable her to defend the indefensible.

Whatever the reason, Truss came across like the man in the Jaguar: initially convinced she would win the argument with flying colours; but ultimately forced to scurry away with her tail between her legs after discovering she was no match for her opponent.

By chance, I had my own reckoning on Thursday, disbelievingly testing positive for Covid after assuming my sniffle was merely an autumn cold brought home from school by one of the children. So sure was I that I couldn’t possibly have Covid, I didn’t even notice the positive test on the kitchen table until after having merrily walked my son to the school gates and had a lengthy chat with my builders.

Having managed to avoid the virus since the pandemic’s onset two and a half years ago, I had genuinely begun to believe I might be one of the supposed super-gene people who have some sort of natural immunity. Even when other members of my household caught it months ago, I had sailed happily along, fit as a fiddle, smug at my good health.

But on Thursday night, between bouts of delirium and with my body aching all over, I had to face the sad truth that I’m no super-fit, genetically advanced specimen, but just a regular Joe, as impotent in the face of Covid as the next person. I might as well have been trying to battle a bus or a local radio news journalist – though at least, unlike Jag man and the PM, I didn’t have an audience for my meeting with reality.