This week's Spectator

The latest issue of the Spectator is released today. If you are a subscriber you can view it here. If you have not subscribed, but would like to view this week’s content, you can subscribe online now.

Five articles from the latest issue are available for free online to all website users:

Walking the corridors of Westminster at the moment is like gate crashing a wake, except for one reason.
James Forsyth reveals that the expenses scandal has delighted the Tories – it has kept Gordon Brown in power.

The Soviets and the Labour party had one thing in common – to keep the forces of conservatism at bay. This engendered mutual co-operation throughout the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. Pavel Stroilov reveals this friendship through the contents of the KGB’s archives.  

Timothy Garton Ash was a student in Berlin when The Spectator asked him to cover what turned out to be the fall of communism. He looks back on the adventure of a lifetime.

The Nutty professor affair has raised questions concerning the working relationship between ministers and advisers. Matthew Parris believes that Alan Johnson is right: the boss should make the decisions; the experts should advise.

And, it is 50 years since Amos Vogel arranged a landmark film screening which catalysed a change in how film lovers, artists and studio chiefs saw the medium. Peter Hoskin celebrates 50 years of American independent cinema.