Knocking on doors in Wales on Thursday, the Labour candidate pauses to check their step count. “Another street means I can have an extra glass of wine tonight,” they joke, before asking another voter for support.

They keep getting the same message back. “I support Labour, but not the Senedd; it’s a massive waste of money and the NHS is worse than in England,” is a standard reply, according to this prospective MP. “That’s why I’m not letting anyone take a photo of Vaughan Gething and me together.”

Gething, Labour’s First Minister in the Senedd, has had his short tenure in office overshadowed by a row over £200,000 in donations for his leadership campaign that he took from a company whose owner was convicted of dumping waste in South Wales.

But while Gething survives – for now at least – the ongoing attention on the case has caused voters to question their attitude to the devolved administration, which has responsibility for health, transport and other key policy areas.

While there is no question Welsh Labour candidates for Westminster are likely to romp home on 4 July, the row could prompt a wipeout of Labour in Senedd elections in two years’ time.

It also raises questions about Labour’s plan for its biggest giveaway of power since it was last in office. Keir Starmer plans to give combined authorities additional control over housing, planning, skills, transport and energy. Further powers would be devolved if they can demonstrate sound management of public money.

Handing more control to local leaders after the election is a calculated risk for the party leader, who used his keynote Labour conference speech last October to tell delegates: “If we want to challenge the hoarding of potential in our economy then we must win the war against the........

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