Just-released National Archives records reveal MP Damian Green urging the Prime Minister's office to embrace the internet ahead of Tony Blair.

It was 1994 and the dawn of commercial internet usage when few people were accessing the world wide web.

Mr Green said it was his early career as a journalist working in Channel 4's newsroom in the 1980s, which he describes as the first "completely electronic newsroom in Britain" that alerted him to the potential of technology.

"We didn't use typewriters and communicated by email and I was always quite drawn to the fact that the technology could be used by anyone in the world," he said.

In his 1994 memo to John Major's principal private secretary, Alex Allan, Mr Green, who was then in the government’s policy unit, wrote: "Various MP’s who are computer-literate have made the point to me that it would be advantageous for No 10 to be seen to be up with developments in this area.

"Specifically, connecting No 10 with the Internet would keep us up with the White House, which has made a big thing of the modern way the Clinton/Gore administration deals with communications."

'Internet users will be a growing group of opinion-formers, and I can just imagine Tony Blair showing how he belongs to a new generation by signing up...' - Damian Green

Mr Green advised that it would be wise to get ahead of the game, especially as a fresh-faced Tony Blair who was elected Labour Party leader in 1994, was waiting in the wings.

He wrote: "Internet users will be a growing group of opinion-formers, and I can just imagine Tony Blair showing how he belongs to a new generation by signing up."

Mr Green, who also recommended that schools use the technology, signed off his memo with an expectant

"Any interest?".

The MP who was elected to represent Ashford in 1997 said that at the time of his appointment there were some in the Palace of Westminster who continued to insist on receiving communications by letter: "When I became an MP in 1997 there were some MPs who simply refused to accept emails," he recalled.

Mr Green revealed that his constituents prefer to contact him by email nowadays, but that the traditional letter remained the most popular form of contacting him until around seven years ago.

He said that he was continuing to keep an eye on trends in the age of social media, adding: "As an MP you need to be constantly on the alert to the ways people are communicating with each other."