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Found this difficult , I carelessly wrote in P-ole for what strippers dance round in 23d and that slowed down completion . Some very good clues and some a little loose for my personal liking . I enjoyed the overall theme of sleeze , it suits the political atmosphere in the UK today .

COD 1a for its misdirection and clean parsing

Hi Chrisxxxx,

I too wrote in POLE for 23d and still don't really get the wordplay for the actual answer.

You're right, 1a is a fantastic clue.

I think 23 is meant to parse as 1,1,2 and also be an &Lit. But I don't find the parsing (particularly the latter 2) convincing. The solution was nearly a write-in, but much time wasted on parsing!

Thanks Geeker, I saw that but just don't think it's correct. Chambers gives those last 2 letters as "stop", "hullo" and "hold" but definitely not "there".

"Land ??!"?

I assumed the last 2 letters were another stripper but that's not really what that means either ;)

In fairness to Tramp, one definition is "to announce destination or direction" which could, maybe, be (we are) "there".

Maybe, as in "bound" (meaning in the direction of travel), which is part of the name of the only British place name with an exclamation mark.