So by now, the whole world knows Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 is a baggage-handling disaster. In print, on air and online, people who should know better have been queueing up to say that this just goes to show Britain can’t handle major building projects and it’s a worldwide embarrassment that we’re this incompetent.

I say to them: Shut up. Yes, it’s quite blatantly ridiculous that there were baggage handling problems on the very first day but I can’t see that there’s anything particularly British about this. Other countries have baggage handling problems too you know.

Maybe not just after terminals have opened, but I’m currently in Bangkok, Thailand. A new international airport opened here in 2006 to replace the old one at Don Muang. Within six months, Don Muang was back in service for some international flights, because the new terminal couldn’t cope with the numbers. And it’s the second largest terminal in the world. Ok, it was six months before that happened, and I don’t know whether that was how long it the Thais to realise it was a problem, or how long it took them to think of a solution. But still, airport problems are not unique to Britain.

People have drawn comparisons with the Millennium Dome and the Millennium Bridge, sayng T5 is yet another example of how bad we are this. But what about all those engingeering projects that worked and that we can be proud of? The Emirates Stadium for Arsenal? The newly-refurbished St Pancras Station which now receives the Eurostar? The London Eye? I seem to recall the London Eye wasn’t a British-initiated project, but it’s now run by British Airways. And they’ve had, what, one breakdown in the last eight years? That’s pretty good going by anyone’s reckoning.

So, in my not so humble opinion, the problem is not British engineering, or British project management. It’s the British attitude. We just love to complain and we love to blame ourselves. I’m not an expert on the ins and outs of who co-ordinated T5 and how and yes, I will say again, if you have baggage handling problems on the first day your flagship terminal opens you should be very ashamed, but last time I checked, wasn’t the British Airports Authority, who are partly responsible, run by a Spanish company…?