Crossword Genius

King leads fight with tense English ex-Chancellor (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

kwarteng

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'ex-chancellor' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.

'king leads fight with tense english' is the wordplay.
'leads' says to take the initial letters.
'fight' becomes 'war' (warring is a kind of fighting).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'tense' becomes 't' (abbreviation used in many dictionaries).
'english' becomes 'eng' (abbreviation).
The first letter of 'king' is 'k'.
'k'+'war'+'t'+'eng'='KWARTENG'

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I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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