The Financial Times (which belongs to Pearson, part-owner of this newspaper) reported an impossible-to-refute account that Zhou Yongkang, a member of the elite Politburo standing committee, had been privately stripped of his powers for lobbying too forcefully on behalf of Mr Bo.

ECONOMIST: Banyan

He is also the youngest member of the Politburo's supreme standing committee.

CNN: A New, Slimmer Government

And Mr Wen is neither maverick nor powerless figurehead he is a senior member of the party's supreme body, the Politburo's nine-member standing committee.

ECONOMIST: Banyan