toxic

Looking back, Smith says, “we were really toxic together. It wasn’t a healthy situation.”

But other experts suggest this would amount only to a few thousand people per year - and attempt to seriously ramp up numbers may become politically toxic.

Neither do the psychologists and political scientists who have been tracking the country’s slide toward toxic levels of partisanship.

Newspapers are back to using words like toxic, deadly and poisonous in their main headlines.

Announcing the review, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said there were legitimate concerns that needed looking at but he also criticised the "toxic nature of the debate", saying it had left PAs feeling demoralised.