Marie-France van Heel 'took some persuading' for Andy Burnham to run again
'They told you twice that they don't want you,' the PM said his wife told him when he shared that he was considering running once more
Marie-France van Heel told Andy Burnham, "Not again, they’ve told you twice they don’t want you," when he suggested he could run for Labour leader.
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The Prime Minister has said that his wife, known as Frankie, "took some persuading" to allow him to quit as Mayor of Greater Manchester to run for the Labour leadership.
Mr Burnham took the Manchester Mayoral role in 2017, having lost the Labour leadership election in 2010 to Ed Miliband and 2015 to Jeremy Corbyn.
He told Elizabeth Day's podcast How to Fail: “She was like: ‘Not again; they’ve told you twice they don’t want you,’
“She took some persuading to be honest, because I guess she didn’t want to see me go through it all again and then end up the wrong side at the end of it, but she gives me good advice."
The pair, both 56, met at university in the 1990s and married in 2000. They have three children, daughters Rosie and Anne-Marie, and son Jimmy.
They have all gone on holiday this week, despite Mr Burnham having only been in No 10 for a fortnight.
He told podcaster Day, who wrote books including the bestselling Friendaholic, that he had grown as a result of the Labour leadership election defeats and become a "much better politician".
Ms van Heel is still keeping him in check as PM, and can be counted to fire off a grounding text, such as telling him, after a round of interviews to, "answer the f***** question".
Mr Burnham added: “She’s quite forthright, she’s Dutch and they don’t hold back, they’re pretty plain speaking and I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of that over the years.”