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  Tories are in the gutter as election strategist Lynton Crosby pushes party towards the politics of division, says Ed Miliband
  
  Labour fears dirtiest Conservative campaign in 20 years, as Attorney General withdraws attack on Pakistani community
  
  Ed Miliband today accuses David Cameron of plotting to run the "dirtiest election campaign" in two decades by putting "smear and character assassination" against him at the heart of the Tory strategy to get re-elected.
  
  In an article for The Independent on Sunday he says that Mr Cameron "demeans his office" with a political strategy "to sling as much mud as possible in the hope that some of it sticks".
  
  The tone of Mr Miliband's remarks show the extent to which Labour has been rattled by Tory attempts to link him and Ed Balls to the former Co-operative Bank chairman, Paul Flowers.
  
  Mr Miliband describes the attacks as "smears" and "a new low". He blames much of the change in tone to the arrival of the Australian election strategist Lynton Crosby at the Tory HQ. And he contrasts the "Crosbyisation" of the Conservative party to more optimistic election strategy pursued by David Cameron in 2010.
  
  In a sign of Tory sensitivity to being labelled the "nasty party" at the next election, a senior Cabinet minister was authorised by Downing Street yesterday to slap down the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, for suggesting that politicians needed to "wake up" to the problem of corruption in ethnic minority communities.
  
  Mr Grieve told The Daily Telegraph he was referring "mainly to the Pakistani community", claiming some immigrants came from communities where corruption was "endemic". He later apologised for giving the impression that he thought the Pakistani community was "a particular problem", saying, "I believe the Pakistani community has enriched this country a great deal."

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