IF we have learned anything from politics in recent years, it is that predictions are a fool’s game.

You get the odd know-it-all who will insist they saw it all coming. That they could see how one political event would impact the other and how the central players would shift and react to every breaking news alert.

These self-declared political gurus talk a good game after the fact, but they are rarely so loud before an event as they are afterwards.

Most of us have grown used to expecting the unexpected by now. But still, few could have ever imagined that they would one day read the headline: “Why Should I Have To Pay For Boris’s Baby’s Arse to Be Wiped?” in a national newspaper.

Yet, here we are. Not only has the Tory sleaze scandal reached that all-important danger threshold of sustained coverage, even the right-leaning papers have turned their fire on Boris Johnson.

There are now three separate investigations ongoing into “cash for curtains” or, if you prefer, “#wallpapergate’. “Bung for babywipes” is the latest instalment in the series and it is perhaps the most bizarre of the whole fiasco so far.

Boris Johnson, serial adulterer and prolific baby daddy, apparently sought cash from Tory donors to fund a live-in nanny for his son, Wilfred. One is reported to have said: “I don’t mind paying for leaflets but I resent being asked to pay to literally wipe the Prime Minister’s baby’s bottom.”

The snippet was reported in the Sunday Times as part of a story that asked if Boris Johnson can afford to be Prime Minister.

READ MORE: SNP demand Johnson release bank statements in Tory donor row

Apparently his salary of £157,372 is not enough. Neither is the royalties cash he gets each year, nor the £28,000 of “personal gifts and donations” that he has received since he took office. He has told his friends that he needs to be bringing home at least £300,000 each year just to “keep his head above water”.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard reports of the Prime Minister moaning about being skint.

It’s a common refrain from an entitled man. In Johnson’s world, no amount of money and power is ever enough.

Boris defenders point out he has to pay tax on his Downing Street accommodation and also – you might want to sit down for this one – he has to pay for the food he eats from the Downing Street kitchen. Poor soul.

They say his latest divorce made a real dent in his personal finances and he is not earning as much now as he did when he was a newspaper columnist.

Who cares? The Prime Minister is not “skint”– he is reckless. It seems he is as careless with money as he is with politics. Nobody forced him to choose wallpaper that was £800 per roll.

Even if Theresa May had “I hate Boris” stencilled on every wall when she lived there he could have made modifications to his temporary residence that were more in line with his budget.

Downing Street has denied claims that the bill for the renovations topped £200k. Even if the total sum was only one tenth of that, that is still a huge amount of money to spend on a house that isn’t yours.

It is no surprise Johnson would rather moan about how tough his life is than answer the serious questions that are mounting over his personal conduct.

His usual strategy is to deny accountability, evade scrutiny and – if all else fails – brazen it out. That won’t work here. The Electoral Commission (which is pursuing the investigation that is most dangerous for the Prime Minister) won’t have any trouble getting the answers it needs.

One way or another, we will find out why Johnson would rather have weeks of negative headlines before election day than come clean about who has been funding his lifestyle.

When that happens, any misguided sympathy some people have for the plight of the poor cash-strapped Prime Minister

will quickly evaporate. This is a Prime Minister who has an ideological obsession with punishing the poor for the crimes of the rich. A man who has written disparagingly about single mothers and “feckless” fathers.

His party has pursued an austerity agenda that has blighted the life chances of some of the most vulnerable people in society.

If the Prime Minister really believes he needs a £300,000 salary just to stay afloat then how can he justify the pitiful Universal Credit and pension rates he expects other people to get by on?

It takes a stunning level of self-involvement to be in the top 1% of earners in the UK and still fight against giving kids free school meals over the holidays in the middle of a pandemic.

To do that while complaining that your own substantial salary isn’t enough is tone deaf in the extreme.

The UK Government preaches to the rest of us about living within our means. Maybe it’s time Boris Johnson tried it.