At the dawn of the internet, Downing Street officials fretted that they needed to get online or look outdated. While recognising that there could be benefits to the web, however, they were convinced that those newfangled emails were a novelty that would soon pale.
Papers released by the National Archives show that advisers in No 10 worried that Tony Blair, then leader of the opposition, would show “how he belongs to a new generation by signing up” as an internet user.
Damian Green, a member of the policy unit who would later join Theresa May’s cabinet, wrote in a memo to Alex Allan, John Major’s principal private secretary, that “internet users will be a growing group of opinion-formers”.
In the note, from August 22,