The Communist Party in China has ejected Bo Xilai, the country's brashest and most controversial politician from its top ranks, and police have detained his wife Gu Kailai in connection with the murder of a British businessman Neil Heywood.

Neil Heywood, a 41-year-old businessman, was found dead in a Chongqing hotel room in November 2011. According to evidence it was suggested Heywood's death was a homicide. But events took a sinister turn when it was been established that there was a dispute over unspecified "economic interests" between Gu and Heywood that "constantly intensified".

The decision to cast out Bo Xilai from the party's Central Committee and its Politburo effectively ends the career of the former high-flyer, widely seen as pressing for a top post in China's next leadership challenge which is to be decided later this year.