Gasp admitting heartless government's in trouble? (8)
I believe the answer is:
pregnant
'in trouble?' is the definition.
('pregnant' can be similar in meaning to 'in trouble')
'gasp admitting heartless government's' is the wordplay.
'gasp' becomes 'pant' ('pant' can be a synonym of 'gasp').
'admitting' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'heartless' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'government' becomes 'reign'.
'reign' with its centre taken out is 'regn'.
'pant' enclosing 'regn' is 'PREGNANT'.
(Other definitions for pregnant that I've seen before include "Gravid" , "Carrying offspring in the womb" , "full of implications" , "Expecting a child" , "Expecting a baby" .)