Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham smiled for the cameras as they visited a school in Greater Manchester less than a month before local polls.
The former deputy prime minister, who is increasingly being linked with a tilt at the top job, will spend a month supporting Labour candidates ahead of a difficult vote expected on May 7.
Angela Rayner has gone on the wagon in a bid to boost her credentials to replace Keir Starmer. The party-loving former deputy prime minister has revelled in her hard drinking image for years.
The former deputy prime minister was forced to quit the Cabinet last year after failing to pay £40,000 in stamp duty on a luxury apartment in Hove, 260 miles from her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency.
Ms Rayner was forced to quit from her roles as deputy prime minister, housing secretary and Labour deputy leader after independent legal advice discovered she failed to pay enough tax.
Ms Mahmood said it was 'absolute rubbish' to suggest the former deputy prime minister was calling the shots after she joined rebels opposed to making it harder for people to settle in the UK.
The trip was enjoyed by Angela Rayner, her boyfriend Sam Tarry and a high-spirited former Labour MP who is said to have been taped to a chair as 'punishment' and ended up with a bruised head.
In a speech last week, Ms Rayner said plans to double the time which most migrants must wait to secure a permanent right to remain in the UK were 'un-British' and a 'breach of trust'.