Thomson was educated at
Bute House Preparatory School for Girls in West London, the
School of St Helen and St Katharine in Abingdon, Oxfordshire and
Marlborough College, Wiltshire. She graduated from
Bristol University with a BA in history and received an MA in newspaper journalism from
City University London. Thomson became a trainee on
The Times in 1990 before becoming a foreign correspondent, feature writer and political reporter for the newspaper. In 1997 she moved to
The Daily Telegraph as a columnist and leader writer and also wrote the restaurant reviews and political interviews before re-joining
The Times in 2008. She has written for
Vogue and
The Spectator and appeared on
Question Time and
Newsnight. In 2014, jointly with colleagues from
The Times, she was Political Journalist of the Year in the
Press Gazette awards. She was previously a Trustee of the think tank
Policy Exchange, on the Policy Committee of the CPRE, and a governor of Bute House preparatory school. Thomson presents the podcast interview series ''What I Wish I'd Known
with fellow Times'' columnist
Rachel Sylvester which has now run for eight series on
Times Radio, which began in July 2020. In December 2022, Thomson was chosen as the Interviewer of the Year at the Press Gazette British Journalism Awards. == Publications ==