It’s one of the oldest and corniest of all political jokes. And there were groans as well as laughs when Kama Sutra Keir taunted Kemi Badenoch with it in the Commons.
Mocking the Tories for changing prime ministers and other top posts, the PM declared in an attempt at raunchy humour: “They had more positions in 14 years than the Kama Sutra.”
For those who don’t know, the Kama Sutra is an ancient Hindu guide on sex positions, the art of love and spirituality. Erotic, its supporters claim. Smutty, according to prudes.
But if Sir Keir turning the air blue sounded familiar, that’s because it is. It’s a dreadful joke that’s been cracked 33 times by senior politicians in parliament in recent years, according to Hansard.
It’s been used by the Conservatives against Sir Keir himself, by former Tory leaders Sir Iain Duncan Smith and William Hague against Tony Blair and by ex-deputy PM Sir Nick Clegg against his Tory coalition partner George Osborne.
Most recently, it was used last July by then-Commons leader Lucy Powell, now Labour’s deputy leader, against her Tory shadow, the posh Etonian Jesse Norman.
In a virtually identical taunt about Tory U-turns to that employed by Sir Keir to Mrs Badenoch, Ms Powell said: “In 14 years they have had more positions than the Kama Sutra.”
But in 2021, Tory chair Amanda Milling mocked Sir Keir: “He points different ways depending on which day it is, changing position more often than the Kama Sutra to chase headlines and play politics.”
A year earlier, in the 2020 Commons Brexit wars, Remainer Tom Tugendhat told MPs wearily: “After years of acrimony and anger, it is time to end the constitutional Kama Sutra.”
In 2013, when he was a coalition minister, Sir Vince Cable mocked Labour’s Ed Balls, telling…
