Queen of Spin: Scot who became a Euro-hero while we weren't looking

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Mar 25, 2001 | by Lorraine Davidson

WE'VE heard many a moan from those politicians who think they've been forgotten since the Scottish Parliament was set up.

A good few Scottish MPs at Westminster think their work has gone largely unnoticed since May 1999.

But in their moments of publicity-starved despair, they should spare a thought for their colleagues in Brussels.

Scotland's MEPs are the real forgotten faces of Scottish politics.

This week, however, Labour MEP Bill Miller hit the headlines and showed just how relevant the European Parliament can be to the lives of people in Scotland.

Mr Miller has been waging a six-year battle to improve the safety of silicone breast implants.

Glasgow woman Margo Cameron asked him for help after suffering years of ill health as a result of silicone lip injections.

She now suffers from MS and claims to have had up to 50 different illnesses over the last decade.

She says the effects of the injections made her so ill she had to cancel her wedding.

She claims her career was destroyed and her son's education damaged because he was forced to spend so much time caring for her.

Cameron took her fight to Westminster and lost.

But Bill Miller this week secured a massive victory in the campaign to crack down on cowboy operators who make a killing out of the implant industry.

He won the backing of EU chiefs to have unsafe silicone products outlawed across Europe.

Women wanting enhancing operations will also be given counselling before and after surgery to pick up any problems, and Europe will also consider imposing an age limit on such operations.

Thanks to Miller's campaign - prompted by one woman from Glasgow - thousands of women across Europe who opt for implants will be safer than before.

Bill Miller this week proved that the European Parliament can make a real difference to the lives of ordinary Scots.

Too often Brussels is blamed for the decisions we don't like, and when it does improve our laws, ministers at Westminster try to grab the glory.

European decisions are crucial to the two big issues dominating the political agenda.

Decisions in Brussels will help farmers recover from the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease and determine the future of the fishing industry in Scotland.

Yet when a group of MSPs travelled to Brussels this week they were accused of junketing by euro-sceptic commentators.

The real scandal is that they don't go there more often to put Scotland's case.