Phillips was born into a Jewish family. Her father was a dress salesman and her mother ran a children's clothes shop. Both parents were committed Labour voters. She was educated at Putney High School, a girls' independent school in Putney, London, and later read English at St Anne's College, Oxford.

She trained as a journalist on the Evening Echo, a local newspaper in Hemel Hempstead, as her probationary period in the provinces, then compulsory for the profession. After winning the Young Journalist of the Year award in 1976, she spent a short period at the New Society magazine, before joining The Guardian newspaper in 1977 and soon became its social services correspondent and social policy leader writer. Gaining initial attention for articles on the treatment of asylum seekers and immigrants, she broke a story that immigrants entering on a fiancee visa from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan (outside of marriage, subject to annual immigration quotas) were being submitted to virginity tests at Heathrow Airport. The policy was quickly changed.

When appointed as the paper's news editor, Phillips fainted on her first day in 1984, she started writing her own opinion column in 1987. As a writer for The Guardian in 1982 she defended the Labour Party at the time of the split with the Social Democratic Party.

Leaving The Guardian, her relationship with the newspaper's readers had become fraught "like a really horrific family argument,". Phillips first took her opinion column to the Guardian's sister-paper The Observer in 1993, and then to the Sunday Times in 1998, before writing regularly for the Daily Mail in 2001. She occasionally writes for the Jewish Chronicle and other periodicals. Since 2003, she has written a blog, now hosted by The Spectator.

Phillips was awarded the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 1996. In 2003, she won the award for "Most Islamophobic Media Personality of the Year" from the Islamic Human Rights Commission. In 2009, she was awarded the Sappho Prize (an award given to a 'journalist who combines excellence in his/her work with courage and a refusal to compromise') by the Danish Free Press Society.

She is married to Joshua Rozenberg, former legal affairs correspondent for the BBC, now Legal Editor of the Daily Telegraph. They have two children.

The BBC has said that Phillips "is regarded as one of the [U.K.] media's leading right-wing voices" and a "controversial" columnist, although she defines herself as a progressive and a defender of liberal democracy. She began her career on the liberal left with the Guardian (which she has since described as "an evil newspaper"), and her gradual drift to the right of the political spectrum has been mirrored by her journalistic career: she now writes for the Daily Mail. She has used her Daily Mail columns and her blog to discuss, amongst other issues, progressive teaching methods, science, Islam, anti-semitism, and Israeli policy; and to support strict anti-drug policies. Condemning what she perceives as Britain's soft stance on drug use she states "consumption of cocaine has fallen by 75 per cent in the U.S. over the past 20 years ... suggesting that the American ‘war on drugs’ has been successful." offering no comment on exponentially rising US sales of crack cocaine.

Barack Obama

Philips holds that Barack Obama believes in "revolutionary Marxism" Despite this being an atheistic ideology, she also believes he has "adopt[ed] the agenda of the Islamists", being "firmly in the Islamists' camp," and of appointing "fifth columnists" for Iran to his administration. She suggests Obama may be secretly a Muslim, writing: "We are entitled to ask precisely when he stopped being a Muslim, and why. Did Obama embrace Christianity as a tactical manoeuvre to get himself elected?". She has suggested the Obama administration seeks "a final solution" for Israel, a comparison which has been seen as comparing Obama to Adolf Hitler. She says the "new distortions supplied by Obama" now "pose the greatest single danger to Israel’s security and existence," a position she regards as "treacherous."

On Britain and Islam

Philips states that Britain is "sleepwalking towards cultural suicide" and "has capitulated to Islamic terror." She added: "Britain at this moment isn’t really sane. It is gripped by a kind of collective derangement... This is no longer England, however. It is Lemmingland." This is part of a deeper "moral sickness of the West", causing it to destroy itself and permit the rise of Islamism. She has written in support of Geert Wilders, who she says is being criminalised in Britain "for telling the truth".

Homosexuality

She opposes civil partnerships and other rights for gay people, calling them "toxic," and arguing that "the traditional family [...] has been relentlessly attacked by an alliance of feminists, gay rights activists, divorce lawyers and cultural Marxists who grasped that this was the surest way to destroy Western society." She argued that giving IVF fertility treatment to lesbians would "help destroy our understanding of human identity," and said the opposition to it represents "a fightback to save our civilisation."

Israel

Phillips has called the Palestinians "a terrorist population", and argued that while "individual Palestinians may deserve compassion, their cause amounts to Holocaust denial as a national project". She has also claimed that footage apparently showing people injured by Israeli attacks on Palestinian areas has been "fabricated/faked". She says: "To repeat for the nth time: Israel was never the Palestinians' 'homeland'. It was never taken from them 'by force'. On the contrary, they tried to take the Jews' homeland from them by force — and are still trying. It was the Jews alone for whom historically 'Palestine' was ever their national homeland." She later argued: "In fact the Jews and the Jews alone are the rightful heirs to the land, in historical, legal and moral terms."

She argues that many critics of the state of Israel's military policies, including many Jews, are motivated by anti-Semitism. She described the paper The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, written by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, as a "particularly ripe example of the 'global Zionist conspiracy' libel", and she expressed her astonishment at what she called "the fundamental misrepresentations and distortions in the paper". On one occasion, Phillips has briefly commented that "[c]riticism of Israel’s behaviour is perfectly legitimate", and she said she disagreed with Ariel Sharon administration in Israel for Israeli targeted killings and house demolition in Palestinian villages and said that those policies leave her "appalled". In the same article, she said Israeli settlement building in the West Bank was wrong. However, critics argue that she offers these points only in passing, and that she smears anybody else who tries to criticize Israel, especially liberal Jews (see below.) She argues that critics of her views are staging a "verbal pogrom" against her.

Phillips supported Operation Cast Lead. In December 2008, Phillips wrote that ongoing Hamas attacks on Israel constituted an attempt at "genocide". She further referred to the United Nations as the "Club of Terror UN" (sic) and argued that "[t]hose who scream ‘disproportionate’ think ... grotesquely ... that not enough Israelis have been killed".

She has said that she supports a two-state solution in theory but that it cannot work in practice, commenting: "I would have no problem with a Palestine that would live in peace alongside Israel [...] I respond to the evidence of what is actually happening. Israel is being demonised [...] If Israel were to leave the West Bank, it would turn Islamist overnight and become an Iranian proxy on Israel’s doorstep. That is why I cannot support a state of Palestine."

Phillips' criticisms of liberal Jews who disagree with her positions on Israel have been condemned by Jewish writers such as Jonathan Freedland, Alan Dershowitz, and Rabbi David Goldberg as well as Johann Hari. Freedland was "horrified" that Phillips labeled Independent Jewish Voices, a group of liberal Jews, as "Jews For Genocide". He wrote in The Jewish Chronicle: "Now, as it happens, I have multiple criticisms of IJV... But even their most trenchant opponents must surely blanch at the notion that these critics of Israel and of Anglo-Jewish officialdom are somehow in favour of genocide ... literally, eager to see the murder and eradication of the Jewish people [...] it is an absurdity, one that drains the word 'genocide' of any meaning." Hari quoted the former editor of Ha'aretz in response, who had called Phillips' behaviour "nascent McCarthyism". Hari also argued further that "it is an attempt to intimidate and silence — and to a large degree, it works". In her response, Phillips asserted that Hari believes in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Hari replied that he had worked undercover to expose Neo-Nazis and Islamic fundamentalists who believe in the Protocols, receiving death threats as a result, and said her arguments are "beyond the boundaries of civilised disagreement". Alan Dershowitz has said that Phillips has committed lashon harah, a Hebrew term for spreading malicious lies, in her commentary about the Obama administration's policies towards the Middle East. More generally, he has also stated: "I support its liberal policies... if Israel were to turn against these values... if it were to become an oppressive theocracy, like all Muslim countries today, that subjugates women, discriminates against gays and subjects science to religious censorship... I would become extremely critical of any such nation. Israel will never become such a country because, fortunately, the vast majority of Israelis reject the extremist views of Melanie Phillips."

The Church of England

In a 2006 column, Phillips criticised the membership and leadership of the Church of England for what she saw as Christian antisemitism, citing a poll in which about 80% of respondents do not believe that Israel is "engaged in a struggle for its survival" and do not "support its efforts to root out its enemies". She also singled out specifically the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, and criticised remarks he made about the plight of Bethlehem Christians under Israeli occupation. The article ended with a condemnation of what she sees as the churches' failure to criticise the President of Iran's desire to "destroy Israel", with Philips concluding that "the churches in Britain are not only silent about the genocidal ravings emanating from Iran but are themselves helping pave the way for a second Holocaust". She has written in support of Anglican figures Michael Nazir-Ali and Patrick Sookhdeo and against Stephen Sizer.

She wrote for The Spectator in March 2009: “Many will be deeply shocked that the Church of England harbours individuals with such attitudes. But the church hierarchy is unlikely to act against them. Extreme hostility towards Israel is the default position among bishops and archbishops; while the establishment line is to reach out towards Islam in an attempt to accommodate and appease it. With Christians around the world suffering forced conversion, ethnic cleansing and murder at Islamist hands, the church utters not a word of protest. Instead, inter-faith dialogue is the order of the day”

Iraq

Phillips supports the 2003 invasion of Iraq and on-going occupation, and later described the members of the Iraq Study Group as being "as intellectually deficient as they are morally malodorous". She argues that George Bush was right to say Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2003, and they were secretly "excavated by Iraqis and Syrians, with help from the Russians, and moved to Syria. The location in Syria of this material... is also known to these intelligence agencies. The worst-case scenario has now come about. Saddam’s nuclear, biological and chemical material is in the hands of a rogue terrorist state ... and one with close links to Iran." She has, however never been known to make similar criticisms of Israel's stockpile of nuclear weapons. On the BBC's Question time programme she was quoted as saying, "...the desire to get rid of Saddam, regime change, eh, was adopted as a policy of the American administration in 1988[sic], under Bill Clinton."

She has also written that James Baker and former US president and Nobel peace prize laureate Jimmy Carter are "the kept creatures of the Arab world" and that "they are intent on smoothing the path to Israel's destruction".

Education

In All Must Have Prizes, first published in 1996, Phillips offered a detailed critique of the British education system, claiming that an egalitarian and non-competitive ethos (progressivism; multicultural education) had led to a catastrophic fall in standards. (The title comes from the description of the caucus-race in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.) She criticised John Dewey's "'disastrous' influence", although a subsequent academic paper said that "Phillips gets Dewey quite wrong," for example in claims that Dewey promoted ahistoric and cultureless education. Phillips singled out one academic paper - on primary-school children's constructions of British identity - for criticism. Its authors responded to her book with a followup study, showing that young adolescents, in common with their counterparts in primary schools, tended to adopt a pluralist viewpoint with virtually no nationalist or racist comments.

Phillips has commented on what she sees as the politicisation of education, particularly at Aberystwyth University. In 2005, she claimed there was an "anti-Jewish witch-hunt going on in our seats of learning" with particular focus on Aberystwyth University, based upon an unnamed student's testimony. In 2008, following further allegations(backed up by documentation) made by another anonymous student regarding the biased nature and reading list of a course on terrorism convened by International Politics Department lecturer Dr. Marie Breen Smyth, as well as allegations by the same student regarding bias against Israel by Breen Smyth and her colleague Dr. Richard Jackson, Phillips wrote to the Vice Chancellor of the University complaining that Breen Smyth was a "subversive" who should not be allowed to teach. These accusations were dismissed by Breen Smyth.

Culture

Phillips has written on political correctness, and been described as one of "a small band of critics that are cited as representing the backlash". In 2001, Civitas published her book America's Social Revolution, looking at the United States' social policy and drawing lessons for Britain, arguing that the "culture wars" were less entrenched in the US, permitting more open debate.

In 2003, she published The Ascent of Woman: A History of the Suffragette Movement. As well as the history, the book also detailed the evolution of the various ideas that lay behind the movement.

In her 2006 book Londonistan, Philips claims that radical Islamism has established London as a base of operations, blaming this for what she sees as the broader failures of multiculturalism, cultural relativism and appeasement in Britain.

Druidry

In the article '"Intolerance against religion" (2002) Philips states "religion has become the great unmentionable in our society. In intellectual, political or media circles, a religious handle is enough to label one as a bigot or fruitcake". However, In 2010, Phillips condemned the Druidic religion as a "joke", a "cult", "absurd", "totally barking mumbo-jumbo", and described the hospitality towards it in public services as "political correctness gone mad". Philips states that Druidry fails to meet the definition of a religion. Whilst the conservative Daily Mail has been regularly reported to the Press Complaints Commission for inciting hatred, racism and bigotry , to the extent that it has been described as "not just actually wicked (intentionally, knowingly lying) but actually now quite, quite mad", this article garnered over four thousand signatures online calling for a formal apology.

Evolution

Phillips argues that Darwinism is "merely a theory" and that although many species (including man) have clearly evolved from lower life forms over time, random mutations cannot account for the evolution of the species from the amoeba, and does not explain the origins of life in the first instance. She writes that it "does not explain the irreducible complexity of certain cells for example, which cannot have been formed by simple organisms coming together". She states "Evolution is not a fact. It is a theory with holes in it. [...] Scientists such as the physicist Stephen Hawking still haven’t managed to produce their grand theory of everything that can explain the mysteries of creation. And evolution certainly does not have all the answers. It does not explain human self-consciousness; it does not explain altruism; it does not explain how existence began.

Phillips has also supported the teaching of Intelligent Design, alongside the teaching of evolution, in schools. She believes there is no conflict between Intelligent Design and science and states that "the fact is that Intelligent Design not only does not come out of Creationism but stands against it. This is because Creationism comes out of religion while Intelligent Design comes out of science". "Creationism and Intelligent Design are two completely different ways of looking at the world".

MMR vaccine

Despite a clear and strong scientific consensus that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism, Phillips has repeatedly questioned the safety of the vaccine, continuing to insist that "urgent questions about the vaccine’s safety remain unanswered", shortly after a 2005 Cochrane review of the vaccine, finding "no credible evidence" of a link with autism, led the rest of the media to conclude that the affair was over. Science journalist and physician Ben Goldacre has called Phillips "the MMR sceptic who just doesn't understand science".

Global warming

Phillips has said of global warming that the current "warm spell is well within the normal cyclical fluctuations in temperature from century to century",that blaming "warming on mankind’s activities in producing carbon dioxide" is "utter garbage",and that the campaign to stop man-made global warming is like a "witch-hunt"and is “one of the greatest scientific scams of the modern age”. She believes environmentalists act in a fascistic manner, writing: "It was no accident that Hitler was a green." She has criticised John McCain for his environmental policies: "Anyone who endorses, as he does, the man-made global warming scam displays an alarming absence of judgment and common sense". Further comments by Phillips on the general issue of global warming include: "there is no evidence for global warming", "the ice is increasing, it is not decreasing", and "polar bears are increasing in number, and the temperature is going down, not up".