Crossword Genius

Crush hearts admitting politician succeeded (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

compress

'crush' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'hearts admitting politician succeeded' is the wordplay.
'hearts' becomes 'cores' ('core' can be a synonym of 'heart').
'admitting' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'politician' becomes 'mp' (Member of Parliament).
'succeeded' becomes 's' (genealogical abbreviation).
'cores' placed around 'mp' is 'compres'.
'compres'+'s'='COMPRESS'

(Other definitions for compress that I've seen before include "Squeeze into less space" , "Press tightly together" , "Squeeze together or squash" , "Make more compact" , "concentrate" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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