But I do think it was more than simply a matter of him losing

But I do think it was more than simply a matter of him losing.”Now decked out in an appropriately sized suit and a snazzy Matinique tie, it has to be said that Twigg, lightly gelled haircut and all, is much easier on the eye than many of his colleagues. Handsome and lightly bronzed, he hasn’t yet assumed either the grey complexion or the cynical manner of some of the old Westminster hands. New to the interview game, he is nervy as to quite what to say and how far to go, although not unexpectedly he is one of the Blair evangelists.Twigg has followed a well-trodden path to the Commons. Student politics at Oxford, president of the NUS for two years, Islington councillor, researcher for Margaret Hodge MP, and, until his election, general secretary of the Fabian Society.

This lack of experience outside politics seems ever more common among the new breed of politician. “It would be a problem if everyone was like me,” he concedes “But I haven’t only been a politician. Although the Fabian Society is a political organisation, the general secretary is actually a management position.”As one of only three openly gay MPs (Chris Smith and Ben Bradshaw being the others), he is acutely aware of the danger of being pigeon-holed as a one-issue politician, especially as the brouhaha over lowering the legal age of consent rages on. Citing the pamphlet he has written on PR, he asserts that his interests are substantially more wide-ranging than those specifically connected to the gay community. “The fact that I’m gay is a personal thing to me,” he stresses “I think Chris Smith is a role model for this. But for all that, he can’t find a way to his lover’s heart, the place she keeps under her unbroken skin, a skin which, under Medem’s gaze, looks like the surface of a planet. In The Red Squirrel, a man claims his blood has frozen in his veins now he’s without the lover who’s abandoned him, and cuts off a chunk of flesh to prove it.

It takes minutes for the blood, held in place by his yearning, to begin to gush. Its protagonist Angel’s mind surges from the inside of his skull to the outskirts of the galaxy, ripped literally in two by what he sees and feels. In his latest, Tierra, the Spanish countryside looks like Mars It ripples with a plague of woodlice. The levels of reality are mixed, there’s nothing and no one to be sure of. In The Red Squirrel (1993), his Cannes prize-winning second film, a bike falls straight from the sky on to a beach that looks like the moon. In Julio Medem’s films, the universe can erupt in your head. The boy teams up with them to conquer the evil Komodo, played by Angus MacFadyen, who over-acts with the recklessness of a man who knows that no one will ever see his performance anyway nAll films on release from tomorrow.

For no apparent reason, a young squirt wakes up in a mystical forest, surrounded by the kangaroo tribe from Tank Girl, and with the dwarf from Twin Peaks on hand as spiritual adviser. The ‘Roos are ancient warriors, forbidden from killing anyone, though permitted to chafe their opponent if it’s absolutely necessary. He’s the figure at the centre of this “mockumentary” and would-be satire on Hollywood. Coming some two years after the various exploits of Heidi Fleiss and Don Simpson, the film lacks topicality, and can only be recommended for its nice parodies of Nick Broomfield’s work, cameos from Pierce Brosnan and Dudley Moore, and some fine agent gags delivered by the charming Michael Brandon, who was once – as all fans of crap TV will recall – one half of top Eighties crime-busting duo Dempsey & Makepeace.Not only is Warriors of Virtue lumbered with the worst title since, well, The Disappearance of Kevin Johnson – this children’s adventure will also bewilder its target audience and bore the pants off their parents. If you haven’t heard of him, that’s because he doesn’t exist.