Angela Rayner's romance with fellow Labour MP Sam Tarry went public today after photos emerged of them leaving her London home together.
Ms Rayner, 41, is believed to have become close to the 39-year-old Ilford South MP after he ran her campaign to become Labour's deputy leader.
And it looked like Mr Tarry had made hurried plans to stay the night since he appeared to have a toothbrush in his coat pocket.
Ms Rayner separated from her husband Mark in 2020 and Mr Tarry, a father of two, is also understood to have now parted from his wife.
They were pictured by the Sun on Sunday leaving her taxpayer-funded home earlier today.
Mr Tarry is something of a rarity, a leftwing Labour MP with a shadow ministerial post, as shadow public transport minister.
He entered Parliament at the 2019 election with the backing of Corbynite grassroots group Momentum, after the previous Labour MP for Ilford South, Mike Gapes, defected to Change UK.
While the pair have been quiet about their relationship, they may have to open up about it in future if Ms Rayner decides to run for the Labour leadership.
Angela Rayner and fellow Labour MP Sam Tarry were spotted leaving her London home together
Ms Rayner, 41, is believed to have become close to the 39-year-old Ilford South MP after he ran her campaign to become Labour's deputy leader
The pair have been quiet about their relationship, they may have to open up about it in future if Ms Rayner decides to run for the Labour leadership
The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne was elected to Parliament as the Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne in 2015 before swiftly rising up the ranks to national prominence.
Ms Rayner was then welcomed to the Labour frontbench under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and was made shadow education secretary in 2016.
She married Unison official Mark Rayner in 2010 before the pair parted ways in 2020.
The pair share two children together and Mark is also a stepfather to Ms Rayner's first child Ryan, who she had at the age of 16.
In 2017, Ms Rayner told The Guardian that Mark had 'brought stability to her life' and had been willing to step back from his job to take on a 'good deal of the childcare' in order to support her career.
The MP proudly welcomed her own granddaughter in 2017 at the age of just 37 with a tweet jokingly referring to herself as 'Grangela' after son Ryan became a father to baby Lilith Mae.
She has previously spoken about how becoming pregnant at the age of 16 had 'saved' her.
Speaking at a Times Red Box fringe event in 2017, Ms Rayner said: 'Even though getting pregnant at 16 and having no qualifications is not the best start for anybody, you've got to understand that where my life was, it actually saved me from where I potentially could have been.
'Because I had a little person that I had to look after and I wanted to prove to everybody that I wasn't the scumbag that they thought I was going to be, and I could be a good mum, and that somebody was finally going to love me as much as I deserved to be loved.
'And that's what pregnancy was for me, it saved me.
'I'm not suggesting that we should advocate it, but to suggest that these young women are just failures and that they've got nothing left in their lives, I was really quite cross that actually they couldn't understand the complex reasons and some of the advantages we can have in terms of changing people's lives around.
'And it did for me, and my children are in a much better position than I ever had, and my mum could only have dreamt of having a daughter that got to where I am today.
'That's social mobility.'
Mr Tarry, who was Jeremy Corbyn's campaign mastermind,
