Flatter paper's held by really elderly person (4-4)
I believe the answer is:
soft soap
'flatter' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'paper's held by really elderly person' is the wordplay.
'paper's' becomes 'FT's' (the Financial Times newspaper).
'held by' is an insertion indicator.
'really' becomes 'so' (both can mean 'extremely').
'elderly person' becomes 'OAP' (old-age pensioner).
'so'+'oap'='sooap'
'fts' put within 'sooap' is 'SOFT-SOAP'.
(Other definitions for soft soap that I've seen before include "Flattery of cleansing kind?" , "Use flattery to persuade" , "Flattery involving cleansing agent" , "Flattery - blarney" , "(Use) flattering talk" .)