Spending on plastic

We hear on the news today that the market in plastic surgery in the UK has risen by a third in the last year. That in itself tells you a lot about our society but what concerns me more than our increasingly vain tendencies is the cost of training all these plastic surgeons who are getting fat on liposuction.

Presumably, like nearly all doctors in private practice, they trained in the NHS at taxpayers' expense. But now they contribute nothing to the general good.

If Gordon Brown needs more money for hip replacements and cataract operations, maybe he should impose an extra tax on those doctors we've paid to train who prefer to cater for vanity rather than illness.

Saltaire Sam