English politician unchanged, absorbing hard priority (8)
I believe the answer is:
emphasis
'priority' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'english politician unchanged absorbing hard' is the wordplay.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'politician' becomes 'mp'.
'unchanged' becomes 'asis' (I've seen this before).
'absorbing' indicates putting letters inside.
'hard' becomes 'h'.
'mp'+'asis'='mpasis'
'mpasis' placed around 'h' is 'mphasis'.
'e'+'mphasis'='EMPHASIS'
(Other definitions for emphasis that I've seen before include "Stress laid on, eg, words" , "Stress, special importance" , "Intensity of expression" , "Stress, accent" , "Stress - misshape (anag)" .)