Mary Louisa "Polly" Toynbee (; born 27 December 1946) is a British journalist and writer.
She has been a columnist for The Guardian newspaper since 1998.
She is a social democrat and was a candidate for the Social Democratic Party in the 1983 general election.
She now broadly supports the Labour Party, although she has been critical of its current left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn.Toynbee previously worked as social affairs editor for the BBC and also for The Independent newspaper.
She is vice-president of Humanists UK, having previously served as its president between 2007 and 2012.
She was also named Columnist of the Year at the 2007 British Press Awards.