Last week, once again, the political establishment slapped us around the face. Enter, stage left, everyone’s favourite Targaryen lookalike, Julian Assange. If there was ever a case that needed the exercise of nuance and intelligent politics it is that of Assange. His expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy and subsequent arrest for skipping bail have underlined how little the political class from left and right give a toss about women’s safety.

In the sparring match about the case between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid, in parliament on Thursday, neither of them mentioned the fact that Assange has, for seven years, evaded accusations of sexual violence in Sweden. Two women have waited years for their cases to be answered and yet until Javid and Abbott were challenged by other MPs, neither mentioned that in fact the country to which Assange was evading extradition was Sweden.
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The trouble is that many of those who like what Assange did with WikiLeaks are willing to look the other way about the accusations against him. The same people who would march for women’s rights wearing pussy hats and waving banners about what a sexist pig Trump is are not feminist allies when their gods are found to be fallible. Platitudes about how we should never say women are lying when they come forward about rape suddenly don’t fit any more and now women are making up sexual violence as part of an American conspiracy. Women are liars when it suits the bigger cause.

Lazy, childish political rhetoric du jour only allows for goodies and baddies. If a goody helped on the big, important stage of war and truth, it doesn’t matter if he might be a baddy on the little stage we have given to women’s lives. The truth, if you wish to see it in the case of Assange, is that the first and most pressing case he should answer is the one where he has delayed and therefore denied possible justice to two Swedish women. The UK government should support his extradition to Sweden before they even begin to consider any pressure from the US.