THEY fear they are in danger of losing the General Election before the date has even been announced.

Now the Conservatives are hoping former Southampton MP Chris Chope will step into the row that has driven a wedge between local Tories and party bosses in London.

Mr Chope - MP for Southampton Itchen from 1983 to 1992 - told the Daily Echo he would speak to local activists to see if he could help sort out the deadlock over the selection of a candidate to fight his old seat.

He warned it would be "very difficult" for a candidate to win if they did not have the support of the local party.

Mr Chope, who now represents Christchurch in Dorset, said: "It may be there are very good people on the list, but you can't really win a constituency for a party without the people who are active in the party being supportive."

The Daily Echo revealed yesterday that Clifford Combes, 86, had become the first casualty of the dispute over who will take on Labour's sitting MP John Denham at the next General Election, widely expected to be held in May.

Mr Combes was sacked as chairman of the Southampton Itchen Conservative branch by London party bosses after Itchen Conservatives failed to find a candidate from the party's list of "approved members" to fight the seat.

It followed months of wrangling between Central Office and the Itchen Conservative Association.

Local Tories had wanted Councillor Royston Smith - deputy leader of the Tory group on Southampton City Council - but party bosses vetoed his selection.

Central Office chiefs are effectively running the Southamp-ton Itchen branch from London while the selection procedure is carried out.

So far, two separate selection panels have met to try and find a candidate to fight the seat.

Meanwhile, local Tories say that it will be "extremely difficult" for the selection process to yield a candidate from the party's approved list of five.

The selection meeting is likely to be held on February 10 but Tory insiders are predicting that the meeting will struggle to attract enough members to be legally binding.

One Tory insider, who did not want to be named, said: "My instinct is that the meeting is unlikely to be well attended."