People like Thomas Cook used to blather vacuously (8)

I haven't cracked this one yet — but the brilliant team at Fifteensquared have:

Anagram (cook, as a verb, perhaps as in “cook the books” = to falsify records) of USED TO + B [lathe] R (vacuously = with inner letters “emptied” out). “Doubting Thomas”: in the Gospel of John, Thomas wasn’t with the other disciples when the risen Christ appeared to them, and wouldn’t believe the news until he saw for himself.