They’re back! In the run-up to the reunion tour to end them all, Emma Bunton talks Spice Girl bust-ups and group hugs, the return of girl power – and why no one puts Baby in the corner

Emma Bunton – aka Baby Spice – is sitting in a north London café, drinking tea. She is a few miles from the lavish family home she shares with her partner, Jade Jones, and their two children, which is in turn a stone’s throw from the small flat she grew up in with her mum and younger brother.

Her face is flushed from doing circuit training in preparation for the Spice Girls reunion tour. ‘I need to be fit for the shows,’ she grins. ‘I’m usually the last person down the gym, but I have to keep up with the other girls.’ By whom she means her Spice bandmates, Sporty (Mel C), Scary (Mel B) and Ginger (Geri Horner), who are all renowned exercise junkies. Alongside the reunion tour – the first in 12 years and their first without Posh (Victoria Beckham) – there is her new album, My Happy Place, which features duets with Robbie Williams, Will Young and her partner of 20 years Jade, the former lead singer of R&B band Damage. It seems 2019 is set to be the year of Emma Bunton.