Jenny Jones: More street scrapper than posh hippy

Standing outside a Soho sex shop named Maison Kiss Kiss, Jenny Jones suddenly finds herself tongue-tied.

It is not the red basques in the window that throw the Green mayoral candidate off her stride, but her party’s ratings. Polls suggest she is backed by two to three per cent of Londoners.

This spells doom not only for her chances of becoming Mayor but the party’s main aim — returning Ms Jones and her colleague Darren Johnson to the London Assembly. YouGov predicts today that only Ms Jones will survive.

When this is put to her by an ITV London camera crew as she canvassed support in Old Compton Street, Ms Jones stumbles over the rehearsed reply: the polls said the same four years ago, yet she and Mr Johnson both made it back on to the Assembly, where they have served with some distinction since 2000.

“The Green vote is there,” she tells the Standard. “It just doesn’t show up in the polls.” Deadpan, she adds: “I’m confident I’m going to be Mayor.”

The 62-year-old grandmother has become a familiar face in London politics, her silver spiral hair and campaigning streak something of a trademark. When she posed with Queen guitarist and celebrity supporter Brian May, one wag tweeted: “Wow, that’s a lot of hair!”

As for the other Queen, she refuses to repeat comments made to a Standard reporter about her apparent wish to see the monarch live in a council house in Hendon. As a member of the (now disbanded) Metropolitan Police Authority, she was one of the few politicians prepared to criticise the Met. Her call for CCTV in the back of police vans was adopted by new commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe. It was her idea for all mayoral candidates to publish their tax returns. She has a “lifetime services to cycling” award from the London Cycling Campaign and wants to issue “smog alerts”, saying the capital has 35 “bad air days” a year.

Ms Jones is in Soho because the gay community is one of the biggest supporters of the Greens. Human rights activist Peter Tatchell is there to offer support. “She is a proven London politician of substance,” he said. “Most gay people don’t trust Boris on gay issues. In the past he has compared same-sex marriage to bestiality.” Despite the Greens being given equal airtime to the Lib-Dems by the BBC and ITV, it is independent candidate Siobhan Benita who appears to have caught the eye as the alternative to the two “big beasts”. Ms Jones mutters darkly about having “spent years knocking doors”, unlike her upstart rival. “You can’t vote for her in the Assembly elections. Our campaign is focused on that.”

Ms Jones urges supporters to vote “Jen 1, Ken 2”, knowing votes will transfer to Mr Livingstone if she is knocked out. She refused to be Boris Johnson’s “cycling czar” and found him “impossible” to work with, especially on road safety.

Despite the refined voice — a product of her grammar school education — she is more street-scrapper than “posh hippy”. “I’m working class. Born on a council estate. I’m an example of upward mobility.”