Did Gordon Brown get the banking bailout correct?

Amid new forecasts that UK taxpayers could be in line for a £27 billion profit on the eventual disposal of taxpayer stakes in Lloyds Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, there is a feeling that Gordon Brown may well have been one step ahead of the game when he came up with his innovative idea for UK taxpayers to take stakes in struggling banks.

While nothing is yet set in stone, it is possible that we could look back on Gordon Brown's tenure as prime minister with more appreciation in the future than he has attracted to date. He was initially held up as something of a saviour by his overseas counterparts only to be eventually ridiculed in public and disowned by many who had backed him all the way. Even though Gordon Brown will admit that he made mistakes during the economic downturn, this was a situation which nobody in the current government or the current financial services sector had ever experienced.

Gordon Brown took very difficult and very controversial decisions with regards to the banking bailout and perhaps many were too quick to criticise him without giving his plans time to mature?