Notes socialist is scared (7)

I believe the answer is:

afeared

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'is scared' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'notes socialist' is the wordplay.
'notes' becomes 'af'.
'socialist' becomes 'eared' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'af'+'eared'='AFEARED'

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I've seen this clue in The Daily Express.

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