Defunct Sebastian Early Anthony Payne[1] (born 2 July 1989) is a British think tank director and former journalist.

He began his career with stints at The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, before joining the Financial Times in 2016, where he eventually rose to become the paper's Whitehall correspondent.

[6] During his time at The Spectator he spent nine months in a Laurence Stern fellowship at the national desk of The Washington Post.

[16] In 2021, Pan Macmillan published Payne's book, Broken Heartlands: A Journey Through Labour's Lost England, about the red wall areas that voted for the Conservative Party at the 2019 general election.

[20] In 2023, Payne applied to be the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for the 2023 Selby and Ainsty by-election and was shortlisted but not selected.

[23] Payne unsuccessfully ran to be the Conservative candidate in several other seats, including Bromsgrove,[24] Bridlington and the Wolds,[25] Waveney Valley,[26] and Surrey Heath.