NEWS that a fifth of British households are now too poor to take a day trip to the seaside illustrates the Victorian-era misery being imposed by this government.

As children’s charity Barnardo’s notes, “family holidays have a special place in the childhood memory box.”

More than that, a family day out by the sea has been a key part of working-class culture since the 19th century.

Trade unions won working people the weekend off and, combined with the long-distance travel made possible by the invention of the railways, a treasured British tradition was born.

It’s a damning indictment of the Con-Dem coalition that hundreds of thousands of families have been priced out of it by wage freezes and benefit cuts while inflation is allowed to run riot.

As explained before in the Morning Star’s pages by Unite Community activist and anti-austerity campaigner Bernadette Horton, the summer holidays are becoming a living nightmare for the working poor.

“Hard-working families” — that group so beloved of Tory speechwriters — are at their wits’ end trying to cover the cost of clothing and feeding their children.

Health experts warned just last week that cases of malnutrition are up almost 20 per cent on last year as the coalition’s class war rages on.

Anyone who thinks being able to take the kids to the beach for the day is a luxury poor families can do without has no understanding of the stresses and strains of being a parent.

A generation is having its childhood stolen, facing a summer of hunger and boredom instead of the proper holiday all young people deserve.

And the class war’s victims are not accidental.

Labour revealed at the weekend that the 10 most deprived local authority areas in the country are facing funding cuts 16 times higher than those imposed on wealthy Tory heartlands.

Budget cuts equalling £782 per home in the poorest areas contrasted with just £48 in the 10 richest are the work of a cynical government that feels no obligation to stop putting the boot into communities unlikely to vote for it.

Shadow communities minister Hilary Benn hardly covered himself in glory by warning cash-strapped authorities that Labour would keep slashing away at their budgets.

His “tough times demand tough choices” mantra could come straight from the mouth of a Con-Dem Cabinet minister.

It repeats the old lie that politicians ensconced in the Westminster bubble are being “tough” when they pander to big business demands to curb public spending and refuse to stand up for working people.

But Mr Benn is right to highlight the monumental unfairness at the heart of government policy.

As much as Thatcher’s ever was, this is a government of the rich, for the rich, by the rich.

Its feeble response to Barnardo’s bombshell — to boast that welfare reforms “will further improve the lives of some of the poorest families” — is staggeringly insincere.

The coalition has ripped the bottom out of the welfare safety net.

Incomes have fallen dramatically. Poverty is on the rise, as witnessed by the scandalous explosion of foodbanks in one of the world’s richest countries.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats have proved they have nothing to offer Britain except a future of ever-greater misery and uncertainty for the majority.

Turfing them out of power at the next election must be a priority for all of us.