Why Akshata Murty’s soft power game at Tory conference was a winning move

Charming, loyal and instantly soothing, Akshata Murty was a beacon of female sanity among the snarling Tory ‘sisterhood’ at conference this year says Rowan Pelling

Akshata Murty embraces Rishi Sunak on stage at the final day of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester (Getty Images)

She stepped out from the shadows in a sharp designer coral trouser suit, vertiginous black pumps with admirably solid heels. Few things are more maddening than super-wealthy people dressing in Zara to show how ordinary they are, but the £875 suit from The Fold was something you knew Akshata Murty, the wife of Rishi Sunak, might actually choose to wear.

Loyalty to husband, to family and to political tribe is everything when placed on the conference stage. And on Wednesday Murty played that part like a pro. Thankfully there was none of the hint of “surrendered wife” (I don’t interfere! Please forget I have a dolphin tattoo!) that often crept into the demure, tasteful dresses of Samantha Cameron.

And the sartorial display was a decided step up from the cottage-core dresses of Carrie Johnson, who would waft through the conference as if she’d just escaped an episode Little House on the Prairie. And so the stage was set for the Prime Minister’s wife to show off her husband’s best side.