Mike Hosking: After seven years in hiding Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has achieved nothing

COMMENT: It was always going to come to some sort of end. The big question was, how long could he string it out?

Julian Assange, Wikileaks reports, is about to get booted out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The police, who once upon a time were stationed outside 24/7, are back ready presumably to slip a pair of cuffs on him when he exits.

The crowds have gathered over the weekend. The claim is the Ecuadorians, not surprisingly, are sick of him. But perhaps remarkably their claim is that Wikileaks have been snooping and leaking the activities of not just the embassy, but the President, Lenin Moreno.

So not only do you hunker down at the generosity of a country, you then abuse their goodwill by breaking the law on their own premises.

What's particularly distasteful about Assange is he's a crook, and he's a crook on the run. This is not unique, but what separates him out from most low renters is he is a lawbreaker with a grandiose attitude.

So grandiose he believes his law breaking is justified. And not just justified, but morally defendable, and for all I know, righteous. But the fatal flaw in the pomposity is that deep down he knows full well none of that is true, hence he's been hiding out for seven years. Him and his mate Edward Snowden in Russia.

If they were so emboldened, so rock solid in their belief, they would have handed themselves in years ago - and had their claims tested. But they didn't, they ran for the hills, or Russia and London in this particular case.

The other oddball in the whole sordid affair is, of course, Chelsea Manning, who disgracefully got given a commuted sentence from Barack Obama. Manning at least faced the consequences of her actions - the other two don't have quite the same backbone, never for a moment thinking Assange would be so stupid to jeopardise his residency at the embassy.

I always assumed he'd be taken out in an ambulance. What shape must he be in, you can't hang out in a room for seven years. No real sunshine, no real fresh air, no real exercise, walks, wanders, or social encounters. Oh Pamela Anderson brought a few sandwiches, but it's hardly real life, is it?

That must not just mess with your body and its health, but equally, if not more, your mind as well. He must be a mess.

And for what? How, pray tell, has the world changed? How, with his revelations and leaks, has he changed or enhanced anything? How, seven years on, has he improved the American security he was so vehemently determined to expose?

If the reports are correct, it's next stop Washington. And it'll be the last we see of him for quite a few years - and that is justice, at last, being served.