THE Tories and their Liberal Democrat collaborators drove 30 per cent of Britain’s population into poverty in the first three years of their coalition, new figures revealed yesterday.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 19.3 million people fell below the official poverty line at some point between 2010 and 2013.

Worst-hit were pensioners and single-parent families — evidence that the coalition government targeted those most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves.

Other European countries also did badly during the bankers’ financial crisis, with Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Spain hit the worst.

“This not only has implications for the design of policies to tackle poverty, but also means that a greater number of people experience poverty than are revealed by the headline poverty indicators,” the ONS said.

The office described those driven into officially defined poverty as “a relatively small minority.”