As he unveiled a crackdown on corruption at the start of this year, China’s newly installed President Xi Jinping described how the ruling Communist party would not just go after the usual “flies” at the lower levels of officialdom but also hunt down some “tigers” as well.

Yesterday, the party rolled out its biggest prize yet as it opened the trial of Bo Xilai, the most powerful person in China to go before a court since Madame Mao and the Gang of Four took the stand more than three decades ago.

Like the fearsome wife of the dictator before him, Mr Bo was in a combative mood, belittling one witness as a “mad dog” and an “utterly corrupt fraudster”. Even his wife, serving a suspended death sentence for murdering a Briton, was enlisted to testify against him.