MEDIA barons’ attempts to aid their Tory friends flopped yesterday when a bid to beat off Labour’s war on wealthy tax-avoiders collapsed.

Senior government figures cowered from the limelight to avoid scrutiny of their finances after millionaire party treasurer and donor Lord Fink suggested that “everyone does” tax avoidance.

But in an attempt to halt a relentless Labour assault, their press allies — tax-dodging billionaires the Barclay brothers and Viscount Rothermere — threw all the mud they could at leader Ed Miliband.

The super-rich owners of the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail unleashed the attack dogs hours after the opposition had stood its ground on Conservative Party donors’ “dodgy” dealings.

Yet yesterday journalists stood shamed for roping in lawyers for murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s family under false pretences.

In a front-page Telegraph attack they were quoted condemning a senior Miliband aide for supposedly bragging that his war on rich Tory donors was another “Milly Dowler” moment — a reference to public support over Labour’s handling of the phone-hacking scandal in 2011.

Within hours BBC political correspondent Nick Robinson had cried foul.

“Media foes of Ed M generating row re Milly Dowler,” he wrote on Twitter.

“I reported aides saw this as moment to stand up to powerful like when that story broke.”

It emerged that the phrase was merely one he had come up with for a blog post and did not come from any Labour source.

A separate offensive by the Mail also floundered.

In a rehash of a 2010 Daily Telegraph story it branded Mr Miliband “Red Ed the tax avoider.”

But it provided no evidence to back up suggestions that he personally profited from changes to his father’s will dating back to when the then Labour researcher was in his twenties.

The 1994 change saw 20 per cent of the family home go to each of the Miliband sons.

Blairite David Miliband later bought out his mother and brother’s share — on which the Labour leader paid the correct 40 per cent capital gains tax.

Mr Miliband tackled the story honestly in a robust performance on Thursday, declaring: “It’s something that my mother did 20 years ago, that was a decision she made.

“Let me just say this — I paid tax as a result of that transaction, I’ve avoided no tax in that.”

Labour candidate and former director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer said Mr Miliband had given a “full explanation” of the issue.

He added that the public were more interested in the real skulduggery of the super-rich via “very complicated, sophisticated tax avoidance schemes where people are moving money around the world.”

Millionaire London Mayor Boris Johnson exposed the Tories’ true position on the issue, telling journalists: “I think people have a legitimate right to minimise their tax obligations if they can.”