Pagers, BlackBerrys And The PM's Email: Westminster Has Long Grappled With New Technology

Senior Government’s use of WhatsApp to discuss high level decisions, and all the associated accountability issues, has been a major talking point of 2023.

But while the platform is new, MPs having trouble grappling with new technologies making their way into official communications are far from it. Before smartphones, there was once a time when Westminster was bedevilled by pagers. 

Pagers – a pocket sized device that allowed individuals to quickly receive voice messages in the form of digital text – were among the ways a new wave of MPs were given their instructions from whips and superiors in 1997. All of the key political players had them at the time, including Tony Blair, his director of communications Alistair Campbell. 

Gisela Stuart, who served as a minister in Blair’s government, remembers the chaos that could ensue when the use of parliamentary pagers was common. 

“The funniest anecdote with a pager was the Second Reading of the Finance Bill – so arguably the most important vote – on the same evening England were playing a qualifying match for the World Cup," she told PoliticsHome.

"Ahead of the expected vote at 10.30pm, a message went out saying the vote will be after extra time or penalty shootouts, whichever is later.

“And it kind of put things into perspective. Which was more important, the second reading of the Finance Bill, which gives legal force to the budget, or football? It was clearly the football."

Stuart also recalled pagers regularly malfunctioned and resulted in her receiving numerous messages from Labour and Conservative MPs which were not intended for her. 

"Of course, if numbers [on the pager] got garbled, messages could end up being sent out to the wrong person,” she said. 

“My favourite, which I