Unaccompanied by deputy head of government at all events (15)
I believe the answer is:
notwithstanding
'at all events' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'unaccompanied by deputy head of government' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'by' could be 'with' (I've seen this before) and 'with' is found within the answer.
'deputy' could be 'standin' (a stand-in is a deputy or substitute) and 'standin' is located in the answer.
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is found in the answer.
'government' could be 'g' (abbreviation for government) and 'g' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for notwithstanding that I've seen before include "anyway" , "Even so" , "without being still" , "However" , "... in spite" .)