General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

Wigan diver

Gordon Brown inherited a strong economy with the current account in balance. He left with a structural deficit of around £180 billion.
He changed financial regulation from a single system of responsibility to a tripartite one and later admitted it was a mistake, he hadn’t realised the scale of the entanglements of global institutions.
The three different bodies regulating the UK financial services sector were not effectively monitoring the banks and building societies.
Northern Rock were doling out 125% mortgages and relying on the money markets to fund their expansion. The rise in interest rates left Northern Rock in a desperate situation leading to the bail out.
Bradford and Bingley building society were allowing mortgage applicants to self-certify income without independent checks until the bubble burst and another bail out.
The biggest failure of all was the Royal Bank of Scotland, along with two European banks, purchase of the Dutch Bank ABN Amro which turned out to be full of toxic assets. This led to the Government taking a controlling stake in RBS.
It is doubtful that any of the above would have happened under the previous system of regulation.
However, the biggest single decision, his worst, he made at the start of the banking crisis was to veto Barclay’s decision to buy Lehman Brothers. This led to the collapse of the bank and was a major cause of the worldwide banking crisis.