. But that doesn't get away from the fact that the so-called tripartite "no-one's responsible" regulation system introduced by Brown didn't work.
So in fact what you are saying is what I am saying, which is not that he deregulated the banks, merely that his re-regualtion was ineffective, which if I'm not much mistaken see us agreeing and takes us right back to here :-
And if you read your own post you will find that it does indeed confirm that he didn't deregulate the banks, what he says is that with hindsight he should have regulated them more. The irony in the article is the little shite Osborne having a go about Brown failing to re-regulate what his predecessors de-regulated.
So thats cleared up then Labour/Blair/Brown didn't de-regulate the banks then.
Incidentally, the reason why they didn't re-regulate being that the Tories left us with no real industry and an export base which was basically financial services. To regulate those would have been to export that last vestige of UK plc overseas also. So what he is in fact saying is that with hindsight he should have shoved the twunts overboard anyway. A sentiment that I would not struggle to agree with personally.
So may we now move onwards and upwards past that one semantic point??