Theresa May used the reshuffle “to help ensure she fights the next election”, senior Conservative sources said as friends of David Cameron suggested that he compared her approach to staying in power to that of Gordon Brown.

Mr Cameron was said to believe that his successor was unlikely to leave office voluntarily, in an echo of Mr Brown after he lost his Commons majority in 2010.

Friends said that after the botched election in June Mr Cameron suggested that while Tony Blair and he left of their own volition when they felt their time was up he expected Mrs May to try to stay in post. “David was suggesting the idea she retires voluntarily seemed implausible”, they said.

Senior sources in No 10 have been