A former counter terrorism chief has described how he initially wondered if the poisoning of a former spy and his daughter could have been “an act of war”.
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were exposed to the deadly nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury in March 2018.
Neil Basu, who led the counter-terrorism investigation, said the “true horror” of the “colourless and odourless” poison was not knowing how to warn people or what to look for.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC’s Salisbury Poisonings podcast, he said: “To leave that lying around anywhere on foreign soil is the most unbelievably reckless disregard for human life I’ve ever witnessed.”
Yeah. Just to let you know. That generic you is the same as saying “you people” and yep we brits have a bad history of that sort of comment. But many of us recognise the error.
Its generally best to say the UK or British government when that is what you mean. Because just like every other nation. Most of the you that are in the UK do not have any control or history over these events.
No, the generic you doesn’t have the history and context of “you people”, and even if it did, using “you people” to refer to groups that people choose to join (i.e the British Government) isn’t a problematic use. The whole point of "you people"being used against ethnic minorities is that it lumps people together as if their skin colour automatically means they follow specific ideologies. The point of an organisation like a government is that they are all working under the same ideology.