THERE used to be a stock exchange in Newcastle – as there was in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Sheffield, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea.

Most opened in the mid-1800s, just as “railway mania” swept the country, allowing companies to raise the finance they needed close to home, instead of making the trek to the capital.

But, in 1965, nine exchanges, including Newcastle’s, merged to form a “Northern stock exchange”, which died altogether in the early Seventies.

An interesting history lesson – or a solution to the problem of how to rebuild Britain’s financial services after the great banking crash and the recession it triggered?

It’s definitely the latter, according to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), which wants ministers to allow England’s cities to take on the might of the London Stock Exchange.

As well as encouraging local ownership of stocks and shares, regional stock exchanges would also help to narrow the North-South economic chasm, the FSB argues.

They could be linked to regional banks, similar to the Bank of Essex launched by Essex County Council in April – the first major municipal bank in nearly 100 years.

It all sounds very promising. Now, if only there was an easy mechanism for breaking up the huge, reckless banks that have failed us all so badly...?

Hang on. Remind me, who owns 70 per cent of the Royal Bank of Scotland, 43 per cent of Lloyds-HBOS, all of Northern Rock and most of Bradford and Bingley? Oh yes, I do – along with all you other taxpayers.

Perfect. A brave government, with heartlands in the North, could create specialist banks in Newcastle, Leeds, or Liverpool? It just has to sell off its stakes cleverly.

What’s more, even the Bank of England governor wants to break up the banks. As Mervyn King told the City last week: “If some banks are thought to be too big to fail, then they are too big.”

Sadly, there is no chance of any of this happening.

Gordon Brown hasn’t spent more than a decade sucking up to the City of London to kick it when it’s down.

Back in 2000, then Trade Secretary Stephen Byers, proposed a “Knowledge Bank” in the North-East to help the region’s entrepreneurs find financial banking. Mr Brown squashed the idea. Now, the plan is to return to “normal” as quickly as possible – a quick sell-off of the Government’s shares at giveaway prices and back to fat cat bonuses.

As that Liberal Democrat sage Vincent Cable put it, the economy suffered a massive heart attack, was treated in intensive care – and yet the Government wants it back on the chips, booze and fags.

IT seemed a brilliant wheeze when the Prime Minister was consumed with wreaking revenge on Tony Blair – set up an inquiry into the Iraq debacle.

Perhaps Mr Brown watched that TV drama in which – with his help – Mr Blair was hauled off for a well-deserved war crimes trial at The Hague.

Two years on, the pair are apparently friends again and Mr Brown has been forced into another embarrassing U-turn to allow hearings in public.

Furthermore, when those hearings come, the spotlight might fall on the Chancellor who didn’t really support the war and, allegedly, failed to fund it properly – rather than on the true believer...