Criss Cross

Angela Rayner, Front Bench, House of Commons, April 2022.

“Rayner was born and raised in Stockport, where she attended the state secondary Avondale School. She left school aged 16 whilst pregnant and without any qualifications.” (Wikipedia)

So what job can you hope for after such an unpromising education? “Angela Rayner … is a British politician serving as Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, and Shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work since 2021 and Shadow First Secretary of State, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party since 2020.” (Wikipedia)

She articulates Labour policy and attacks shortcomings in the Conservative government cogently and with vigour in rather a charming accent. In case you think I’m being condescending, I have great admiration for her, even if she is batting for the other side, so to speak.

Now where are we? She has been accused of crossing and uncrossing her legs to distract Boris at PMQs. The only people she distracted were salacious Conservative MPs bored by their wives, Boris’s repetition and entranced by her lower appendages. They can enjoy looking but they shouldn’t tell The Daily Mail.

But this is a digression. Crisis Cross is a film released in 1949: American crime noir. The billboard shows a shapely leg, so perhaps there’s some connection.

“A tough, mildly exciting melodrama about gangsters and a dame named Anna who ‘gets into the blood’ of a guy named Steve and causes him no end of trouble … In many ways Criss Cross is a suspenseful action picture, due to the resourceful directing of Robert Siodmak. But it also is tedious and plodding at times, due partly to Mr. Siodmak’s indulgence of a script that is verbose, redundant and imitative. However, the writers should be credited with having invested the old triangle-gangster formula with a couple of fresh if not exactly revolutionary twists.”(New York Times review)

Who knows what twists lie ahead in British politics?