Possible Clues:

• Soil: digger initially runs into it
• What a vacuum cleaner vacuums
• Striding back, find some muck
• Scandalous information I'd turned up starts to ruin Tory
• Nitty Gritty ---- Band
• Scandalmonger's buzz
• The skinny
• Earth; grime
• Gossipmonger's stuff
• Squalor