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Polly Toynbee (born 1946) is a journalist and writer in the United Kingdom, as of 2004 a columnist for The Guardian newspaper, since 1998. Her columns are often provocative; while she generally supports New Labour, she is often also a critic. Her work has often caused sharp reaction; she in an intellectual gadfly, and has been described as the journalistic equivalent of an internet troll.
Biography
She was born on the Isle of Wight. She read history at St Anne's College, Oxford but dropped out before completing her degree course. She went into journalism, and has also worked in television, being BBC editor for social affairs 1988-1995. She has written for The Observer, The Independent and Radio Times; and edited Washington Monthly USA.
Toynbee was the second daughter of the literary critic Philip Toynbee (by his first wife Anne), and so granddaughter of the historian Arnold J. Toynbee. Through her paternal grandmother Rosalind Toynbee, eldest daughter of the classicist Gilbert Murray, she is a descendant of the 9th Earl of Carlisle. She thus has a distinguished academic and aristocratic descent, as follows:
- 9th Earl of Carlisle → Lady Mary Murray md Gilbert A. Murray, Regius Professor of Classics → Rosalind Murray md (div) Arnold J. Toynbee, historian → Philip Toynbee, literary critic → Polly Toynbee, journalist
Polly Toynbee was married to the late Peter Jenkins, also a journalist.
Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay Britain
In 2003, she published the book Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay Britain about an experimental period voluntarily living on the minimum wage, which was £4.10 at the time. She worked as a hospital porter in an NHS hospital, a dinner lady in a primary school, a nursery assistant, a call-centre employee, a cake factory worker and a care home assistant. She was influenced by the American writer Barbara Ehrenreich who made Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America about her life in low-pay America. Toynbee expressed strong disapproval of the level of the minimum wage, which she argued should be increased considerably, and also raised concerns about terms and conditions issues such as holiday pay and working hours. The book was received positively by some left-wing critics, but was savaged by some right-wing critics, who considered that it combined self-absorption with a poor grasp of the underlying issues.
In 2003, she was nominated as "Most Islamophobic Journalist of the Year" by the Islamic Human Rights Commission for her criticisms of Islamic culture, but lost to the right-wing journalist Melanie Phillips.
Partial bibliography
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