After graduation, Vine worked in customer services for the retailer
Hobbs Ltd. She then worked in a series of jobs within journalism, including TV listings sub at the
Daily Mirror and features editor for the magazine
Tatler, before joining
The Times. She was promoted to arts editor at that newspaper. She was a columnist for
The Times for 15 years before joining the
Daily Mail, a tabloid newspaper, in 2013. In March 2014, she and her husband's decision to send their daughter to
Grey Coat Hospital comprehensive school in Westminster made Michael Gove the first
Conservative Party education secretary to have chosen the state over the private sector for their child's secondary schooling. In her
Daily Mail column, Vine celebrated the "miracle" of state education and criticised private education, saying "Its agenda is a fundamentally selective one, based not only on ability to pay, but also on pupil potential. And it is also, let's face it, about snobbery". Vine added that her decision to send her daughter to a state secondary school was motivated by a desire for her child to receive a broad education: "that you shouldn't judge people by their clothes, or where they live, but by who they really are. That, in my view, is the miracle of our state education system. Like the
NHS, it welcomes all-comers. The state doesn't care where its pupils come from; all that matters is where they're heading." During the
2015 United Kingdom general election, Vine used her column to criticise Labour Party leader
Ed Miliband, his wife and their 'forlorn little kitchen'. In the same column, she reported that her own kitchen was '10 years old' and that the 'hob has many knobs missing'.
Private Eye magazine questioned this as it commented that £7,000 had been spent on the kitchen as part of her husband Michael Gove's MP expenses. Vine suggested that this was a 'twisted interpretation'. In the 2016
UK referendum on EU membership, she voted for the UK to leave the EU. On 28 June, she accidentally sent a private email meant to be read by Gove and his close advisors to a member of the public, who leaked it to the press. In the email, Vine had advised her husband not to back
Boris Johnson's bid to become leader of the Conservative Party unless 'specific assurances' were given to him. Two days later, Johnson unexpectedly dropped out of the
2016 Conservative Party leadership election, after Gove made a surprise bid to become leader. ==Personal life==