Intolerant, extremely immoral slur about artist (9)

I believe the answer is:

illiberal

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'intolerant' is the definition.
(I know that intolerant can be written as illiberal)

'extremely immoral slur about artist' is the wordplay.
'extremely' means to remove the middle letters (letters on the extremes of the word are used).
'slur' becomes 'libel' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'artist' becomes 'RA' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'immoral' with its middle removed is 'il'.
'libel' enclosing 'ra' is 'liberal'.
'il'+'liberal'='ILLIBERAL'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for illiberal that I've seen before include "Restrictive" , "unenlightened?" , "Narrow-minded" , "Intolerant; reactionary" , "Intolerant; ungenerous" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.

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