Commanding one politician, expressing hesitation, to start issuing a law (8)
I believe the answer is:
imperial
'commanding' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'one politician expressing hesitation to start issuing a law' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'one' could be 'i' (Roman numeral) and 'i' is present in the answer.
'politician' could be 'mp' (Member of Parliament) and 'mp' is found in the answer.
'hesitation' could be 'er' (sound made while hesitating - um, er) and 'er' is located in the answer.
'a' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for imperial that I've seen before include "To do with empire or emperor" , "Sovereign - old Russian gold coin - type of beard" , "Of UK weights and measures" , "Majestic - not metric" , "Non-metric" .)