Burnham: I know about business, my wife ran one

ANDY BURNHAM, the frontrunner for the Labour leadership contest, has boasted he has experience of living in the real world – because his wife used to run her own business.

The 45-year-old Liverpudlian has put his claim to understand the lives of ordinary people outside the “Westminster bubble” at the heart of his campaign for his party’s leadership.

Challenged on Sky’s Murnaghan programme to relate his own experience of the private sector, he hesitated before responding: “Well, I worked in the private sector when I left university, albeit not for long but I did. My wife has run her own business in the past so I have experience of working in the private sector.”

Mr Burnham’s Dutch wife, Marie-France van Heel, known as Frankie, is a brand consultant whose firm MVH Marketing Limited was dissolved in 2011 after three years of operation.

At its peak in 2009 her business had assets of £56,982 and a net worth of £33,661 with liabilities of £24,136. Mrs van Heel was the sole director.

Having previously worked in market- ing for BSkyB, she is now employed by the London-based firm Heavenly, which has designed logos and corporate slogans for clients including HSBC, England Rugby and the BBC.

A spokesman for Mr Burnham said the MP’s experience of the private sector amounted to a “few years” working as a journalist on “trade publications” – a term which refers to magazines targeting a specific profession or industry.

Mr Burnham remains the bookies’ favourite for the leadership contest, but has recently been losing ground to Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary.

He has also been seeking to distance himself from Ed Miliband, who stood down as the party’s leader after last month’s defeat at the polls.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, he said Labour had become “toxic” in the last decade, and described Mr Miliband’s mansion tax policy as “spiteful”.

Saying he had not been consulted about the policy, he revealed his mother, Eileen, had told him it represented a return to the 1970s and was a vote-loser.

Mr Burnham will this week deliver a major speech promising to help renters on to the housing ladder.