Politicians have the Spanish to defame (5)
I believe the answer is:
libel
'to defame' is the definition.
(I know that libel is a more specific form of the action asperse)
'politicians have the spanish' is the wordplay.
'politicians have' becomes 'lib' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'the spanish' becomes 'el' ('the' in Spanish).
'lib'+'el'='LIBEL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for libel that I've seen before include "Offence" , "Actionable words" , "Published false statement that damages reputation" , "Damaging publication" , "false report" .)