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David Cameron joked about sex positions and having been a hooker in a speech unusually laced with innuendo for a Conservative party conference. We asked Guardian editorial community manager Marc Burrows – who has been known to moonlight on the standup circuit – to assess the quality of the prime minister’s one-liners.

A sex joke

Cameron got his biggest laugh for claiming to have shown his wife a book written by Labour’s economic guru:

There’s an academic called Richard Murphy. He’s the Labour party’s new economics guru, and the man behind their plan to print more money.
His book is actually called The Joy of Tax. I’ve read it. It’s got 64 positions – and they’re all wrong.

Marc Burrows’ verdict: This is a classic joke structure, almost textbook in fact: take two disparate ideas (‘The Joy of Sex’, and taxation) and play with the language that links them. I suspect he’s read some books on putting together comedy. It’s very Cameron: smooth, a little self-satisfied, a little smug, quite old fashioned, and a touch after-dinner-speaker. It’s a groaner, but it does work. We’ll give him this one.

Barely a joke. There’s no punchline here, so it’s working on momentum and knowing his audience, pressing their feel-good buttons. No one outside of the room is going to crack a smile. It’s lazy technique, getting the audience on side and getting them to like you without having to use any real effort.