Callous governor lacking cultural pretensions (9)
I believe the answer is:
heartless
'callous' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'governor lacking cultural pretensions' is the wordplay.
'governor' becomes 'HE' (abbreviation for His or Her Excellency).
'lacking cultural pretensions' becomes 'artless' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'he'+'artless'='HEARTLESS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for heartless that I've seen before include "insensitive" , "Scrooge was" , "Completely lacking in feeling" , "Lacking pity due to cardiac deficiency" , "Without pity or feeling, being defective in cardiac way" .)