Reportedly see a Conservative without, say, class (8)
I believe the answer is:
category
'class' is the definition.
(I know that class can be written as category)
'reportedly see a conservative without' is the wordplay.
'reportedly' becomes 'eg' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'see' becomes 'C' (the word for the letter, according to Chambers).
'conservative' becomes 'tory' (informal term for a Conservative Party member).
'without' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'c'+'a'+'tory'='catory'
'eg' inserted inside 'catory' is 'CATEGORY'.
'say' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for category that I've seen before include "Classification of grey-coat" , "Class of grey coat" , "Class or division of similar subjects" , "Group of classified items" , "Class with the same attribute" .)