Labour's opening with brilliant tax cut (8)
I believe the answer is:
lacerate
'cut' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'labour's opening with brilliant tax' is the wordplay.
'opening' says to take the initial letters.
'with brilliant' becomes 'ace' (I've seen this before. I am not sure about the 'with' bit.**).
'tax' becomes 'rate' (rate is a kind of tax).
The first letter of 'labours' is 'l'.
'l'+'ace'+'rate'='LACERATE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lacerate that I've seen before include "Clear tea (anag.)" , "Tear or cut (flesh) deeply" , "Deeply cut (flesh, skin)" , "Injure be tearing, wound roughly" , "Cut, leaving jagged edges" .)