Possible Clues:

• What the public wants - to ask
• Ask - what the public wants
• Request made emphatically as by right
• Claim of Lloyd's member, bound by method of payment, rejected
• Is this what one might be making of 9 across?
• Requisition
• Not just ask
• Ask to have the title wrong when there's a divine around
• Peremptory request from damned crook
• Minister about to call back to present an ultimatum