Get real, Akshata Murty. You may have chosen Rishi, but none of us did

Sunak's wife continued an appalling pantomime tradition, but she was at least spared the knives

As we gather here today," said Akshata Murty, Rishi Sunak's wife, to look to the future of the UK ... " OK, I'll be honest. The end of this sentence got lost to my internal cacophony. Are you allowed to say that about gathering? Don't you have to go to vicar school first?

It was a vanishingly short speech, introduced in winning style with a faux-prod at the prime minister that he didn't have a clue what his wife was about to say. The audience laughed approvingly, imagining their quaking premier anticipating his acid-tongued wife. Would she reveal that he was aspirational? Or that he believed in fair play? Would she have loved him from the moment they first met, or the point at which she realised how fervently he believed in the rule of law? It was a high stakes game for Sunak, who'd had quite the morning, rendering ill-managed railway disappointment unto Manchester, while he was literally in Manchester.