Vacuous English politician facing vacuous Tory (5)
I believe the answer is:
empty
'vacuous' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'english politician facing vacuous tory' is the wordplay.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'politician' becomes 'mp'.
'facing' says to put letters next to each other.
'vacuous' means to remove the middle letters.
'tory' with its middle removed is 'ty'.
'e'+'mp'+'ty'='EMPTY'
(Other definitions for empty that I've seen before include "worthless" , "Evacuate" , "Vacuous" , "(Of words) lacking sincerity" , "vain" .)