Rachel Sylvester is a political columnist at The Times. She started writing about politics in 1996 and was a lobby correspondent on The Daily Telegraph before becoming political editor of The Independent on Sunday. She joined The Times in 2008. She is Chair of the Times Education Commission.

Alice Thomson is a columnist and interviewer at The Times. A former Times trainee, she became a foreign correspondent, feature writer and political reporter for the paper before moving to The Telegraph as a columnist, restaurant reviewer and leader writer. She returned to The Times in 2008. She is the author of The Singing Line.

Rachel and Alice host the Past Imperfect podcast together.