So Brighton’s Green MP Caroline Lucas has said she’ll pocket the £212,000 funding her party can receive following the General Election.

In her acceptance speech she railed against a ‘political system that is broken’ and ‘five more years of savage austerity’. Now we know what she meant by finding ‘new ways of putting this new politics into practice’.

Even UKIP’s sole MP Douglas Carswell realised the ridiculous anomaly in the rules around so-called Short money that meant having just one MP could entitle his party to more than half a million pounds. To his party’s chagrin he has refused to take the enormous increase he is entitled to.

But not Caroline ‘new politics’ Lucas, who has said the Green Party will take the £212,000 – to ‘employ staff to help me, as the sole Green MP’.

Just what will she spend this hard-earned taxpayers' money on? In comparison, Labour receives around £26,700 for each MP.

Unfortunately, unlike MPs’ other expenses, there is less transparency on how Short money is used.

On her website, Lucas says she previously used it to employ one full-time member of staff.

By my calculations that's a whopping salary and expenses for that person of £146,000. Come clean Caroline Lucas and put your money where your mouth is, and only take what is reasonable and fair because that is how you put a new politics into practice during this age of austerity.

Steve Gladwin, Hampden Road, Brighton