Alice Thomson

Alice Thomson is a British political journalist. She is an associate editor, weekly columnist, and political interviewer for The Times. Starting as a trainee on The Times in 1990, she became a foreign correspondent, feature writer and political reporter for the newspaper. Winner of interviewer of the year in 2022, she has also written for Vogue, the Financial Times and The Spectator among other publications and appeared on Question Time, Any Questions and Newsnight. Alice presents the interview series Past Imperfect with fellow Times columnist Rachel Sylvester on Times Radio, which began in July 2020, also available as a podcast, and now in its sixth series. In 2022, with Rachel Sylvester, Alice wrote What I Wish I’d Known When I Was Young, looking at why it is that often the most successful people have overcome tragedy and adversity in childhood. Alice is married with three sons and one daughter and lives in London and mid-Devon.

Alice joined the Commission because she has been writing about the South-West, the countryside, farming, health, education, and transport issues for the last 30 years for both The Times and Telegraph newspapers. She thinks the area has been neglected by the press and government in recent years while the emphasis has been on levelling up the cities and the north, most recently the so-called red wall constituencies. The SouthWest faces its own issues which she’d like to address such as social mobility, educational attainment, rural poverty and transport. Focussing a spotlight on the area will help us to ensure future generations will achieve their potential. Alice Thomson, Associate Editor, The Times