How rosy is our financial future?
Rosier than you may have been led to believe, according to Justin Urquhart Stewart, from Seven Investment Management…
On economic stimulation:
"What we are living in, is a world where you have so much stimulation to try and get things growing: low interest rates and all those sort of elements, And of course the prices you know in terms of commodities. I find it astonishing when you talk about a futures market - you invested the futures market, so why on earth don't you have one?”
On perception:
Mr Urquhart Stewart said that the UK economy is actually doing a lot better than we are told and has been undergoing "sullen growth." Last year 500,000 new businesses were started in the UK, there are record numbers of people employed and things have been improving quite dramatically.
"Suffice to say that when you look at the key areas of service and manufacturing and construction they are all sort of doing ok, and that is important because that ripples back to what you are doing as well. So we need to keep that going.
"There's no reason why you should be interested in Sheffield, other than the fact that Sheffield is now producing more steel than it did 40 years ago, which is remarkable. We are actually producing more cars than we did then. So this perception that we are not very good at things must change.
"You only have to look at the increased production to see that you are producing, and yet if you asked the person in the street they would have a different view because that is what the media tells them."
More...
- NFU15: Truss on GM, bTB and labelling
- Is livestock volatility the new norm?
- NFU15: Commissioner Hogan prioritises CAP simplification
- Watch our conference opening video here
- NFU launches new 'Get's My Vote' campaign
- Read Meurig Raymond's full speech here
- NFU15: Stark choices on self-sufficiency
- In the news: NFU15 Conference coverage
- Day One at NFU Conference: Preview
On politicians:
"One of the problems we have had is that politicians are astonishingly untrained in whatever skills you have asked them to have, apart from being politicians. When it comes to running the economy it helps if you actually know how to . . . run the economy. Like, having been in business, run a farm, done something like that.
"Do you run businesses? I run businesses, the definition of running a business is waking up at 2.30 in the morning in a cold sweat wondering if you've still got one.
"If you find that you’ve got a chancellor who has a cursory connection to a wallpaper company and a leader of the opposition who occasionally visits somewhere outside of Hampstead it really doesn't cut it."
On Europe:
Mr Urquhart Stewart said that Greece is a political problem rather than a financial one and the Eurozone cannot afford to set a precedent for Portugal or Spain. But he said that Greece's level of 50 per cent youth unemployment was "socially dangerous.”
Spain and Ireland are showing improvements but the whole of Europe needs to see more confidence if people are going to invest.
On tax:
Mr Urquhart Stewart said that we now have double the number of taxes that we had in 1997 and he branded stamp duty as "dumb."
"Now is the time for some radical common sense reform: tax averaging, in terms of National Insurance and Income Tax. Stamp Duty! What on earth do we pay stamp duty for? We brought it in to pay for the war against the French. We have sort of stopped that for the moment; if Farage gets in he might want it back again."
Place first bit of content here.
How do I watch live?
If you’ve got a computer and an internet connection, you can watch most of the sessions in the main hall by clicking on the player in this page.