Questions in the House

It's there in black and white on page 15 of THE GUARDIAN (29 August 1985). "Questions were asked in Parliament." The questions were about US Gold's game Raid Over Moscow -tag line, "Play it like there's no tomorrow." Except THE GUARDIAN is wrong. The game was controversial in the UK, just ask Monsignor Bruce Kent of CND, but no questions were asked in the UK Parliament. It was in Finland where a communist MP questioned distribution of the game. This was disappointing to learn but I found myself wondering whether any of our MPs did ever talk about games or home computers. There's only one way to find out.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/ Faced with the tyranny of a blank search box, I type the first thing that comes to mind. Raid Over Moscow was a bust but how about US Gold? 18 results, great. Then I realise they are spread over a period of 200 years and mostly refer to the yellow stuff what comes out of the ground. This is clearly going to take a more systematic approach. 

I start with the obvious; ZX Spectrum. That gives me three results. Lord Holmes of Richmond, in a debate on the 25th Anniversary of the World Wide Web (2014): " When I was a schoolboy, 25 years ago, I had no idea about the world wide web or its potential; I was still playing on my ZX Spectrum." Next, Lord Watson of the Wyre Forest, Information Assurance (2008):  "Twenty-five years ago, when the right hon. Gentleman first entered Parliament—and when his Front-Bench colleague the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) and I were probably playing “Manic Miner” on a 48-kilobyte ZX Spectrum—the information that can now be held on a DVD would have filled 400 filing cabinets. " That's good and a bonus mention for Manic Miner. The last result dates to 1984, Paddy Ashdown speaking on High Technology Exports:  "The United States has retained the de facto right to veto exports of any computer which has either networking facility, software development tools or virtual memory facility. That veto will, in fact, allow the imposition of controls on exports to all destinations on machines as simple and primitive as the Apple 2 and the ZX Spectrum" Who are you calling primitive? It's only 1984.

[A slight but related tangent, here's Mr King's very odd contribution to a discussion on the 1985 Sexual Offences bill. "I also wonder about the Bill's definition of a motor car. We understand the car to be a four-wheeled vehicle, but a new beast has recently been introduced—Sir Clive Sinclair's C5 runabout. It is not a motor car, but it can kerb crawl. Indeed, that is about all that it can do. Is it possible that someone in a Sinclair battery car will not be covered by the Bill and will therefore be able to solicit from the doubtful comfort of his motorised bath-chair?"]

Three hits for the ZX Spectrum. How will the Commodore 64 do? 18 results. I'm not optimistic, they will probably all relate to a 1927 parliamentary production of HMS Pinafore. It turns out three are relevant. As far as Parliament is concerned the great C64 V Spectrum war was a draw. First, Paddy Ashdown mentions Commodore Business Machines in passing during his 1984 High Technology Exports speech.

More interesting is Lord Stirrup (I'm not making up these names, honest) who decided a 2013 debate on the Defence Reform Bill was a good place to say: "Our main attack aircraft, the Tornado, came into service some 30 years ago. Noble Lords may recall that in the early 1980s, the cutting-edge technocrats among us were playing around with the Commodore 64 computer, with its massive 64 kilobytes of memory, and not with iPads."

Dr John Pugh made this contribution to a debate on the UK Software Industry (2010): I am not especially interested in video games per se. I have not played them since the days when
I had a Commodore 64 and played a game called “Pesky Painter”, which unfortunately I have not been able to obtain since. If anyone listening to this debate has a copy, I would be pleased if they wrote to me so that I could have access to the game again." Dr John, have you tried visiting Lemon 64?

The UK Software industry debate was full of MPs wanting to show off their gaming credentials. Mike Weatherley chipped in: "My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) mentioned his preferred game; mine is “Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2”."

This was followed by Justin Tomlinson: "At midnight on Monday, “Call of Duty: Black Ops” was launched as the latest product in a series of the world’s best-selling computer game... It was my birthday on Friday, and I am hopeful that when I return from Westminster at the end of the week, a copy of the game, along with “Football Manager 2011”, will be waiting for me. I must, however, confess that I am exceedingly average at both games...
I have spoken to a lot of hon. Members about this debate, and the average level of knowledge about computer games among MPs is not fantastic. I have done a little research, and found that Positech Games has launched games called “Democracy” and “Democracy 2”, where there is the opportunity to be the Prime Minister. I am sure that the Leader of the Opposition will soon be ordering a copy." Ho-ho. 

Finally Jim McGovern added: "It is wrong to say that “video games” just involve young lads sitting at a computer playing “APB” or “Grand Theft Auto”.

Right. That's the Spectrum and Commodore, what about Amstrad. Nope. No one had anything to say about the Amstrad CPC range although a lot of sucking up to Sir Alan seems to have gone on. The most obscure reference I was able to find was a 1984 speech by Mr Shore who said: "... the reported closure last week of three microcomputer firms — Dragon Data, Tycom, about which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is aware and concerned as it serves the Conservative party, its headquarters and offices, and, thirdly, Camputers?"

Stuart C. McDonald outed himself as a BBC Micro owner while discussing the Computer Misuse Act 1990. "The hon. Member for Bridgend said he was a toddler back when the legislation was passed. I certainly was not; I would have been sitting, as a teenager, with my BBC Micro computer taking 20 minutes to load “Football Manager”.

Lord Haskell had nostalgia for the same computer while talking about the Broadband Committee Communications Report (2016): "I remember more than 30 years ago when we all got our first computers. Mine was a BBC Micro—a wonderful bit of technology at the time. You switched it on and there on the screen you got the “>” prompt. Then you were on your own."

Not many games have reached enough of a critical mass of public awareness to be mentioned in Parliament and those that do tend to be more modern. Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt along with a few other sensations du jour like Night Trap and Carmageddon. Of which Lord Campbell of Croy warned darkly in 1998: "In future, when citizens find that their cars have been stolen and driven around, with damage done, or injury, they can attribute some of the blame to this computer game; likewise when their motor insurance premiums are increased". Pokémon GO was cited several times in the 2022 debate on the National Security Bill after some players in Canada wandered on to an military base. There was a brief Parliamentary craze for "funny" mentions of Fruit Ninja, after David Cameron was reported to be playing it a lot. Lara Croft is namedropped a few times. Derby was "the birthplace of Lara Croft" according to Chris Williamson in 2010. The following year Mike Weatherley disagreed, "Lara Croft was born in Wimbledon," he stated. Technically they are both right, publisher Eidos were based in Wimbledon but Chris Williamson is more correct because creators Core Design were based in Derby.

No one talked about Ant Attack or Chuckie Egg. Monty Mole didn't rate a mention despite his role in ending the Miner's Strike. No MP was nostalgic for Gremlin Graphics, Ultimate Play the Game, Konix, or Design Design; there were no emergency questions on the password for SPECTACLE or whether Design Design's Big Simon was taller than Kevin Toms. Hansard generated three results for Jet Set Willy but disappointingly they all turn out to be references to West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and the possibility that he might buy some jet fighters.

The SUNDAY PEOPLE
12 December 1982 page 11

In 1982 Mel Croucher of Automata managed to goad THE SUNDAY PEOPLE into giving some free publicity to his ZX81 compilation tape Love and Death. One of the games was called Rubic's Pube and the paper duly sourced quotes from an Ideal Toys spokesman and, for some reason, Labour MP  Dr. Oonagh McDonald. The paper describes her as "calling for a government probe into naughty TV computer games," but sadly I can't find a record of this in Hansard.

During a debate on terms used in the 1984 Video Recording Act, the one which made home videos subject to classification by the BBFC, there's a comment by MP Graham Bright: "Most video games are exempt, but it is possible for a video game to include violence or sex. Hon. Members may be aware of The Sun campaign for Harrods to stop selling one such game as it included scenes of killing and raping a girl. The amendment will catch that area." The game was Arctic's Ship of Doom, and while the description of the game as "including scenes of...." are accurate, they vastly overstate what was on offer from a game which offered basic two sentence replies to text commands. THE SUN article was apparently headlined Computer Game Nasty Zapped by the Sun, and ran on page 3 (natch). Ship of Doom ended up requiring violent or sexually explicit games to be submitted to the BBFC; which is pretty much why the CRL games Dracula, Frankenstein, and Jack the Ripper were created in 1986/87 -so they could be the first computer games rated 18.

Can you use the Hansard search engine better than I can? Have I missed UK MP's questions about Raid Over Moscow? If you know more, or have additional information about Oonagh McDonald's inquiry or have a copy of the 1984 SUN news story then send an email to whereweretheynow@gmail.com. Or leave a comment, or follow me on Bluesky @shammountebank.bsky.social and Instagram, shammountebank.