Jenny Jones is not what you would expect from a Baroness. For a start, she doesn't call herself a Baroness. She has been at two protests in the last week. And on Monday, she was arrested. ‘‘I've had quite an interesting week,’’ she begins.

‘‘I was hugging a friend. He was about to get arrested and very upset. I thought he was about to collapse. I had my arms around him and they arrested me for obstruction. First time in my life I've been arrested. Suddenly you're completely powerless.’’

Her arrest was at least ironic. As the Deputy Chair of the London Assembly's Police and Crime Committee, she has spent the last years scrutinising the methods of the Met.

‘‘I thought I was getting somewhere. We have an honourable tradition of protest in this country but now it is not accepted in the same way. We are going backwards and the policing is getting more repressive.’’

Boris Johnson has suggested using water cannon against protestors. ‘‘What a stupid thing to do. They're useless," she fumes. "The Met says so. The Association of Chief Police Officers says so.’’

But protest isn't the only issue shrouding the Met. The incessant stop-and-search of ethnic minorities has brought accusations of racism. Jones does not shy from the issue. ‘‘Policing relies on good community relations and all the information you get from local people. To annoy such a large proportion of the population is just mad.’’

Northern Ireland has a system whereby recruitment for the Police is representative of the religious division: for each Catholic, they hire a Protestant. Should the Met apply hiring quotas? ‘‘Any Police force should represent the people. So in London we should have 51 per cent women, 25 per cent black and ethnic minority. It's the only way to get a police force that satisfies the communities. There is still an element of canteen culture that leads to corruption.’’

But Jones makes the Met sound more idiotic than corrupt.

‘‘There are so many things wrong with policing in London at the moment that the list would probably take up several pages. For instance, they have me down as a domestic extremist. It's a bit of a joke. They put in a report a few tweets that I'd made. But they'd missed the time I drove a van full of activists up to surround Ratcliffe-on-Soar [power station].'

Jones is the sole Green voice in the House of Lords. Just before the interview, a national opinion poll showed the Greens overtaking the Liberal Democrats for the first time. ‘‘The more we get heard, the more people like us,’’ Jones says. I ask if they are like UKIP, which has used frequent media appearances to build support. ‘‘Yes.’’ Jones answers. ‘‘Except, we have policies.’’

One place the Greens already have power is Brighton. But since they took over, the place has been plagued by a bin men strike and a vote of no confidence in the Council leader. Most surprisingly, the borough ranks only 302nd out of 326 for its recycling efforts. ‘‘Are you sure that's not just Labour propaganda?’’ Jones jokes. ‘‘I think they've done incredibly well.’’ She mentions progress in paying the living wage and the fact the strikers settled. Jones acknowledges there are ‘‘some idiots’’ in the party though.

Jones ran for London Mayor in the last election. That campaign saw Boris promise not to run as an MP whilst at City Hall, yet this year he announced he wanted to return to Parliament. ‘‘Boris is a liar,’’ Jones says with resignation. ‘‘I'm horrified at how many times he sits there and lies to us at London Assembly meetings. And he gets away with it. One minute he says one thing, the next another.'' 

The Evening Standard has been accused of a pro-Boris bias, and Jones agrees. ‘‘It's a huge prop [to him]. He obviously gets on with the editor and owner very well.’’ The Baroness found herself in their pages last month. The paper suggested she had been frivolously charging taxis to expenses. ‘‘I live in an area where a woman was raped just a few weeks ago. I charged for one taxi a month for three years because I do evening meetings. But the thing was it linked my taxi use to diesel cabs and said I was promoting air pollution.’’ Jones pauses and laughs at the spin. ‘‘That was weird.’’

Unlike most peers Jones wants to ‘‘scrap’’ the Lords and ‘‘put in a fully elected upper chamber.’’ ‘‘It doesn't make me very popular.’’ But experience has softened her view. ‘‘Since I've been in there, I've seen that it does work on some levels.’’ She mentions the value of fellow peers Doreen Lawrence and Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson- people ‘‘who wouldn't normally get elected.’’

As the Green Party grows and gathers power, I sense they will be well served by the guidance of Baroness Jones.