Andy Burnham and his wife Marie-France van Heel presented a united front in Liverpool as the Prime Minister arrived for his first Labour conference, amid growing tensions among senior figures in his party.
The couple were greeted by Labour supporters outside the conference hall, where they embraced before Mr Burnham addressed the press beneath the party’s “Hope Again” slogan.
Mr Burnham said he wanted to put the country on a new course after a decade marked by “too much drift and too much division”. He added: “We need to draw a line under that.”
Renewing his pledge to deliver “good growth in every postcode”, he said: “We’re going to make this a really important week where we set out a new direction for the country.”
The Prime Minister, who had travelled from the family home in Warrington after going for a run, promised “hope in every heart” and said people would be able to believe “that things will improve, that life will get better – and it will”.
He described walking into his first conference as Labour leader and Prime Minister as a “proud” moment, recalling that his grandfather had driven a lorry for Tate & Lyle along Liverpool’s docks.
“I wonder what he would make of this right now,” Mr Burnham said.
The Everton supporter also joked: “I love coming to Liverpool on a Saturday, normally to support the Blues, but we’re all supporting the Reds today, aren’t we?”
Labour tensions grow ahead of conference
His public show of confidence came as unrest continued among senior Labour figures ahead of next month’s Budget.
Peter Kyle, a former business secretary and supporter of Wes Streeting, said the Government needed to take more short-term decisions to stimulate growth. He suggested ministers may need to discuss with unions how the introduction of some workers’ rights was sequenced.
“We might need to look and have honest conversations with unions about how we sequence some of the rights going forward to make sure that we get growth into the economy in the shorter term,” Mr Kyle told the BBC.
Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, meanwhile, criticised plans to extend the period before overseas social care workers could qualify for permanent residence from five years to 15 years.
Ms Rayner said applying the change retrospectively to people who had arrived since 2021 would “change the goalposts”. She has previously described Shabana Mahmood’s migration proposals as “un-British”.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy defended Mr Burnham, saying he was “impatient for change” and had a clear sense of the scale of reform required.
Labour chair Bridget Phillipson said the party still faced a “massive fight” against Reform and the Conservatives, despite an initial improvement in its poll position since Mr Burnham replaced Sir Keir Starmer.
She said: “We’ve got a big fight on our hands come the next election and I don’t underestimate that challenge for one second, but there’s a real sense of purpose and energy as conference gets underway.”
Mr Burnham has also ruled out an early general election, saying before the conference that he wanted to “knock dead” speculation about a snap poll.
Marie-France van Heel supports the Prime Minister
Ms van Heel, known as Frankie, recently left her role as a marketing executive at Manchester-based electric vehicle charging network Be.EV, where she had worked since 2024, to support her husband.
She has accompanied him at public engagements since he entered Downing Street, including the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the unveiling of the Bayeux Tapestry, where she met the King and Queen and Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron.
Earlier in the week, she attended a lunch hosted by US First Lady Melania Trump while Mr Burnham made his first official visit to President Donald Trump. She also met Olena Zelenska and Diana Carney at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Ms van Heel is said to be keen to establish relationships with other political spouses before the UK assumes the G20 presidency next year and the G7 presidency the year after.
At the Liverpool conference, she wore a burgundy faux-leather midi skirt from Next with matching kitten heels and a handbag, paired with a white shirt. Mr Burnham wore jeans, a T-shirt, a suede Harrington jacket and Adidas trainers.
The couple, both 56, met at Cambridge in 1989 and have two sons and a daughter. Their relationship began while Ms van Heel was studying social and political sciences and Mr Burnham was reading English.
Ms van Heel also briefly appeared on the ITV dating programme Blind Date in 1992, after agreeing to meet a contestant named Will from Surrey. The televised date to Gibraltar ended unsuccessfully, but she and Mr Burnham have remained together.
