The first plenary session of a newly elected European Parliament in Strasbourg can usually be relied upon to have its difficult moments. This year was no exception. But first a lighter moment when one Labour now ex-MEP on the minibus from the airport asked if we could divert via her hotel because she had just too many bags to handle. The ex-members attend on Monday, as the last day of the outgoing parliament, to collect their medal of service.

On arrival one had to battle with separate queues to collect a) the keys to one’s new office, b) one’s new voting card, c) one’s new pass. For newcomers the process is compounded by having to find your way round the complicated layout of the building. I managed a, b and c relatively painlessly only to find that, like everyone else on our floor, I had the keys of my neighbour’s room because we had all been bumped up one number and the key people hadn’t heard about the change.

When I could get into my office, and leave the glacial cool of my neighbour’s, I found that the air conditioning was not working. It was hot in Strasbourg that day. Then I found that the phones were only half programmed so I had to remind myself how to work them. After that I couldn’t get into the email because the keyboards were programmed for Czech users so some keys were quite different, but you can’t tell when trying to enter your password what is actually under the black dot. The TV wasn’t working either (we use it mainly to see the list of meetings and what is happening in the hemicycle but also to see the news on BBCworld or Skynews). All a bit frustrating!

The new office looks inward to the courtyard inside the tower building which some of us call the Gulag. To be fair the office seems slightly larger than the ones on the other side. Normally I prefer to be the sole occupant because I experience what I can only describe as room rage if I have to share, but, for this week only, my assistant from Brussels was in Strasbourg. Just as well, as it turned out, because she set about fixing aforesaid keys, air conditioning, keyboard and TV problems and thereby mollifying yours truly’s irritations.

My mood was not helped by all the friends from our former group and other acquaintances around the Parliament who enquired tenderly after the health of the new group. As readers may be aware, David Cameron ordained that we Conservative MEPs should leave the EPP-ED, the main centre-right group in the Parliament and the largest one, to form a new non-federalist centre-right group. This move has been viewed with amazement on all sides in the European Parliament and with some dismay in the business community.

They say, why leave the largest group where you had much influence and a relationship envied by many for its flexibility and independence of voting? Why would Cameron cut himself and his party off from its natural allies in Europe who are in government in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and Greece to name but a few? Allies who will be all the more reluctant to help when he takes power and has to deal with the EU at first hand.