When juxtaposed with their preventing his communication with the outside world, I’m beginning to see the actuarial possibilities as kind of bleak:

The president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, has ordered the withdrawal of additional security assigned to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has remained for almost six years.

………

Over more than five years, Ecuador put at least $5m (£3.7m) into a secret intelligence budget that protected him while he had visits from Nigel Farage, members of European nationalist groups and individuals linked to the Kremlin.

Rafael Correa, the then Ecuadorian president who approved of the operation, later defended the security measures as “routine and modest”.

However, his successor, Moreno, appears to differ in his view. His government said in a statement: “The president of the republic, Lenin Moreno, has ordered that any additional security at the Ecuadorian embassy in London be withdrawn immediately.

………

Moreno has previously described Assange’s situation as “a stone in his shoe”.

I inclined to believe that, “A stone in his shoe,” translated from the Ecuadorean dialect of Spanish to, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

This will not end well.