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Seconds from admitting he overstepped lockdown rules, leader of Tories is committed (6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

devout

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'is committed' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'seconds from admitting he overstepped lockdown rules leader of tories' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'from' could be 'o' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'o' is present in the answer.
'he' could be 'dev' and 'dev' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'ut' 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 devout that I've seen before include "Pious, given to prayer" , "Pious, earnestly religious" , "Pious, prayerful" , "Pious and worshipful" , "sincere" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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