Lansley "friend": Gay marriage not a "serious issue"

Guido reports that friends of Andrew Lansley have hit back at Tim Montgomerie over his attack on the controversial and ludicrous Health Bill.

The attack does seem rather unfortunate and probably strenghtens Montgomerie's hand:

“Tim’s sole achievement in politics was to be chief of staff to the most unpopular leader in Conservative history, so forgive us if we don’t take any lessons from him. He clearly wants to take the party back to the bad old days of constant infighting and no policy. He should stick to talking about gay marriage and leave serious issues like the NHS to the grown ups.”

1. It reminds people how unpopular the vile Work and Pensions secretary was when he was leader. How happy will IDS be about this?

2. It implies that gay marriage is not a serious issue. Many in the Tory party would disagree.

Given that Tories have been trying to claim that Ken Livingstone is a homophobe, they do not want to look like they are dismissive of equality issues like this.

With friends like these...