Scotland is a small country that seems to be picking up a lot of unwanted titles these days. We’re now tagged as the European capital of botched cosmetic procedures.
We’re the “Wild West”, where any syringe-toting chancer can set up in their kitchen and inject a filler of unknown provenance into anyone desperate enough for a cut-price procedure.
And the worst of it is there’s no sheriff to run these cowboys out of town. It seems unthinkable that any civilised nation would allow such procedures to take place without regulation.
It also seems a stretch to think anyone might be allowed to inject a substance into the body of another without a credibly recognised qualification.
And it’s questionable if adverts for such procedures would even be allowed on social media platforms like Facebook – where 90 per cent of Scottish filler appointments are allegedly booked.
We are now getting used to seeing the faces of young women becoming disfigured by bodged work. But the backstreet practitioners, critically, have even less idea of what to do when things go wrong.
We’re also normalising cosmetic procedures so much that young women will happily top up a filler in the way they’d get their roots done at the hairdressers.
They need to have a good think about who they should trust to wield a syringe around their bodies. Doctors and nurses who work in the field are brought to heel by professional bodies. It’s time that the spotlight is put on all the chancers who are putting lives at risk.
Too far Trump
The US presidential contest has been dominated by the usual bogus claims by Donald Trump. He said immigrants had been eating cats and dogs and even suggested vice president Kamala Harris is not black.
His latest bizarre allegation is Labour officials are unlawfully interfering in the election. The reality is Labour activists are giving up their time to help in the most important election in living memory.
They are paying to be in the US out of their own pocket and are complying with tough election rules. Trump should look in the mirror when it comes to interference.
He famously implored Russia to “find” Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016 and benefited from Putin’s interference. He has never accepted his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 and did everything he could to overturn the result.
This time around he is set to benefit from billionaire Elon Musk offering cash incentives to voters. Trump has run a rancid campaign which we hope ends in defeat. He is the past and must be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond. Sign up to our daily newsletter.