I meet Isabel Hardman by the side of the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park two days before London goes into lockdown. There’s a bitter wind but the primroses have just come out and she points to the starlings having a bath by the rushes. Both of us like to swim in the murky lake, Hardman all year round in neoprene boots, gloves and a red bobble hat, but now the assistant editor of the Spectator magazine is nearly eight months pregnant and confined to short walks.
So, when I discover a few days later that she and her partner, John Woodcock, the former Labour MP, both have a temperature and are suffering, I worry. Not about catching Covid-19, but knowing she will soon give birth