Born in
Chelmsford she is one of the daughters of the actor
Geoffrey Hinsliff. She attended
Queens' College, Cambridge, graduating with a first-class degree in English. After two years at the
Grimsby Evening Telegraph from 1994 to 1996, Hinsliff joined the
Daily Mail, where she was successively a news reporter and health reporter, before becoming a political reporter in 1997, Hinsliff was the youngest political editor of a national newspaper when she was promoted in December 2004, this time succeeding
Kamal Ahmed, who had been her immediate superior at
The Observer since her original appointment. Although Hinsliff loved the job, she resigned in late September 2009 "to get a life", to move "out of London to write, think, do some projects I never had time for" and "to spend more time with her husband and son". ==Career since 2012==