David Cameron offers jobs to Tory old guard

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He suggested the trio of grandees, who all served in John Major's Cabinet, could get key posts if he wins the next election.

"These people bring a huge amount to the House of Commons and Conservative Party," he said. "I listen to their advice. They have every chance of serving in a future Conservative government."

Mr Cameron's comments were seen as an olive branch to older Tory MPs who complained they were treated as scapegoats in the expenses scandal. Significantly, it came on the day that his young chief media adviser, former New of the World editor Andy Coulson, was facing a grilling by MPs about the phone hacking scandal on his old paper.

The old guard have long felt frozen out by Mr Cameron's youth-dominated leadership, and have accused the Tory leader of treating them as "bed-blockers" in the way of young talent.

Mr Cameron told the Daily Telegraph: "It's often said that I wanted to get rid of old MPs. That is not true. People like George Young, James Arbuthnot or Peter Lilley, Stephen Dorrell; people that have done work for me, like John Gummer."

Mr Lilley was once one of the most controversial Right-wingers of the Major years, who offended lone mothers and benefits claimants by saying he "had a little list" of scroungers who would "not be missed".

However, he has impressed Mr Cameron with a 500-page study on global poverty that helped establish the Conservatives' credentials in the field.

Mr Gummer, the former agriculture minister who fed a burger to his daughter Cordelia to calm BSE fears, is now a leading environmental campaigner. Former health secretary Mr Dorrell is a centre-Left Tory who backed Ken Clarke for leader.