Deficient Conservative in panic (6)
I believe the answer is:
scarce
'deficient' is the definition.
('scarce' can be similar in meaning to 'deficient')
'conservative in panic' is the wordplay.
'conservative' becomes 'c' (abbreviation commonly used in UK politics).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'panic' becomes 'scare' ('scare' can be a synonym of 'panic').
'c' going inside 'scare' is 'SCARCE'.
(Other definitions for scarce that I've seen before include "Common? Definitely not" , "Not plentiful, hard to find" , "Hardly" , "Not often found" , "Hard to get" .)