So why are we so untamed when it comes to sex, Jackie? What can we do to raise visitor satisfaction? I’m sitting here listening to the new head of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who’s actually presenting her wild theories on that increasingly endangered species, the British male.

This household pet, Jackie Ballard suggests, is one animal about whom you just can’t be too cruel, particularly on its mating habits. Despite years in captivity, it appears the British male gives scant pleasure to the female of the species. Ballard was recently on a field trip to Iran; she avers that Iranian males make far better mates. Did Jackie track enough male beasts to render her sample statistically significant? “It’s not many but it is more than one,” she says. I should hope so, Jackie, before you dismiss 30m British males.

A strange topic for us to be discussing, you might think, but then Ballard cuts an unconventional charity figure. She is cackling now, unconcerned that she has veered off-message about Be Nice to Elephants Week or some such. “I have been married once (now divorced and, I suspect, on the lookout. My experience of Iranian men is also very limited. But Iranian men see it as their duty to please women. And certainly when I was young I don’t think that was universally accepted among British men.”

Ballard, a former Liberal Democrat MP has just, amid much beating of breasts, taken over the world’s most eminent animal charity on a salary said to be £90,000. The debt-ridden RSPCA is in crisis: critics say it has been politicised, turned into an anti-hunting, anti-toff pressure group. A Tory peer has even suggested that its “Royal” status be reviewed. Is Ballard really the one to restore its reputation and finances? Her detractors, one of whom resigned from the

RSPCA council in disgust, claim, wrongly she says, that she can’t read a balance sheet. This could have been tricky as she has a budget of £80m to administer, though her nearest rival was hardly the embodiment of prudence: Steve Marshall ran Railtrack.

“The RSPCA has debts of £16m,” screamed a tabloid with queer logic, “so why is its new boss a feminist?” A more pertinent question might be why its new boss believes that those who hurt animals are also likely to abuse a child, but can’t then defend her use of a can of wasp zapper.

As a student, Ballard picketed Miss World but after losing her seat in 2001 she went to Iran to learn Farsi (as you do) and there her feminism mutated a shade.

She found Iranian women in many ways more liberated than British women, even if they have to tiptoe around in dresses less slinky than black bin liners. Her new attitude to modesty will surprise those who recall her pink miniskirts at Lib Dem conferences in the 1990s.

All of which has zip to do with her ability to run a charity with 1,800 staff, but it does suggest that hers is not a dull appointment.

She certainly has lively views on how to run the RSPCA. It must shed its Morris Traveller image of old ladies pootling about saving cats, and develop radical chic. It should campaign for zoos to free all large beasts. Oh, and she wants to run joint campaigns with children’s charities against “all cruelty”. “There is a place for fluffy, but there is also a place for hard campaigning,” she says, taking on the traditionalists who argue that the RSPCA should avoid politics.

“The RSPCA was founded in the 1820s as a campaigning organisation. Only 5% of the budget is spent on campaigning, which you could argue is not enough. My ambition is to make it a charity my 24-year-old daughter — who cares about animal testing and whaling — will want to join. I would like to see RSPCA members with placards at the docks protesting against live export of animals and outside meetings of the World Trade Organisation, which regards animals as commodities.”

She also hints she favours an outright ban on animal testing, though publicly endorses official policy that opposes only “unnecessary” testing.

While the RSPCA is probably on the side of the angels, its aims don’t seem entirely consistent. It denounces hunting, but is quiet on fishing: “It’s nothing to do with popularity, it’s about levels of cruelty.” Hmm. It does not advocate vegetarianism, though as Ballard admits, if your cause is saving animals it’s odd to eat them. Jackie, incidentally, munches fish but not burgers. “I can’t justify that particularly. In Iran I even ate chicken because it was more convenient, and I don’t want to think how they were killed.”