Wind up Tory with hint about dire leader (8)
I believe the answer is:
conclude
'wind up' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'tory with hint about dire leader' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'tory' could be 'con' (abbreviation for Conservative) and 'con' is present in the answer.
'about' could be 'c' (circa) and 'c' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for conclude that I've seen before include "Bring or come to an end (8)" , "Reach an opinion based on reasoning" , "Infer or bring to an end" , "Terminate; deduce" , "Decide - terminate" .)