I have spent the last few days watching in amazement as Eurostar has spectacularly mishandled the crisis that ensued when five passenger trains broke down in the cross-Channel tunnel last week. I was lucky to avoid getting caught in the chaos myself — I’d been scheduled to travel to Paris by Eurostar on Friday, but my meeting had been cancelled the night before. Had I travelled, I might have had to endure the nightmare described by those caught up in the chaos, caused by icy weather shutting down the trains’ electrical systems.