UK advertising watchdogs don’t believe a guarantee of speedy travel between Britain and France.

An email promotion by the English Channel tunnel operator Eurotunnel was headlined: ‘France in just 35 minutes. Whatever the weather’.

But five Eurostar trains broke down in the tunnel in December because of cold weather, delaying Eurotunnel vehicle shuttles.

And a Eurostar passenger who was stranded at a check-in for five hours because of the snow complained that the advertised claim was misleading.

The UK Advertising Standards Authority agreed, saying the claim "whatever the weather" could not be made if Eurotunnel was dependent on other companies and on infrastructure functioning normally in bad conditions.

It ruled that the ad was misleading and must not appear again in its current form.