A spy tries to get this hint from Cockneys and the Spanish (5)
I believe the answer is:
intel
'a spy tries to get this hint' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.
'from cockneys and the spanish' is the wordplay.
'from' becomes 'in' (I've seen this in other clues).
'cockneys' becomes 't' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'the spanish' becomes 'el' ('the' in Spanish).
'in'+'t'+'el'='INTEL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for intel that I've seen before include "Information" , "military info" , "Chip manufacturer based in California" , "silicon chip manufacturer" , "US chip manufacturer" .)