Crossword Genius

Vintage politician pretty much presided over collapse (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

crumple

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'collapse' is the definition.
(crumpling is a kind of collapsing)

'vintage politician pretty much presided over' is the wordplay.
'vintage' becomes 'cru' (e.g. grand cru).
'politician' becomes 'mp'.
'pretty much' means to remove the last letter.
'presided' becomes 'elp' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'over' is a reversal indicator.
'elp' back-to-front is 'ple'.
'mp' with its final letter removed is 'm'.
'cru'+'m'+'ple'='CRUMPLE'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for crumple that I've seen before include "Become crushed" , "wrinkle" , "Make wrinkled" , "Suddenly lose composure" , "Collapse, cave in" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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