Actually, that's not true. Who temporarily suspended anti-competition regulation to allow Lloyds to take over HBOS? Gordon Brown. End result? TWO fooked banks instead of one. HBOS was dead in the water and should have been written off.
Incidentally, why don't we take a look at the toothless FSA. It was set up in the mid-80s as the Securities and Investments Board (overseen by the Bank of England). When Labour did their deregulation bit (around 1997) it became the FSA (new single point of contact so-called 'Super Regulator'). However, the biggest change was the name on the door and the letterheads plus the removal of the supervision of the BofE.
Latterly, we seem to have gone full circle with the BofE now supervising the FCA which, incidentally, lives in the same offices and employs many of the same staff that the FSA did. So, the name changes (along with the letterheads) but they seem to be otherwise much the same.
We appear to be more or less back to where we were in 1985 and, on the grounds it was fooked then, it seems reasonable to say it's probably fooked now although, arguably, not quite as badly fooked.
In the deregulation vs regulation argument it might be better to regulate GOVERNMENT to stop them interfering with stuff they patently have no clue about.