One managing to get politician to bite? Sadly fifty involved - shameful! (12)
I believe the answer is:
contemptible
'shameful' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'one managing to get politician to bite? sadly fifty involved' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'one' could be 'i' (Roman numeral) and 'i' is found in the answer.
'politician' could be 'con' and 'con' is present in the answer.
'fifty' could be 'l' (Roman numeral) and 'l' is present in the answer.
'get' could be 'be' ('get' can mean 'come to be') and 'be' is present in the leftover letters.
The remaining letters 'tempt' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for contemptible that I've seen before include "Shabby" , "Base" , "Vile" , "Despicable" .)