Trial is over but the Bo show to go on

As show trials go, the drama featuring Bo Xilai, the once-swaggering, media-savvy former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief of Chongqing, veered anomalously into improvisation.

Before the proceedings began, the conventional wisdom was that Bo’s trial had been carefully scripted and rehearsed to portray a forlorn and penitent sinner confessing his crimes and apologising to the Party.

But the trial dispelled any notion that Bo would go quietly to his cell in Beijing’s infamous Qincheng Prison.