Jim Armitage: A £35,000 ‘reward’ that will sicken Grenfell’s survivors

Building contractor Rydon had a great 2017. As it trumpets in its accounts today, profits jumped thanks to its “commitment to leaving a positive legacy”, and, naturally, the boss got a well-deserved pay rise of 8%. Trebles all round.

Slight issue: Rydon was also the lead contractor on the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower. That means it was running the project that saw cheaper cladding installed that has been blamed for the rapid spread of the blaze, which killed 71 people.

Rydon is clearly confident it will be cleared of much wrongdoing in the Grenfell Inquiry, or face costly legal action: it hasn’t set aside any cash provision in the accounts. Those fearing a whitewash will take little comfort.

However, as we reported here a few weeks back, Rydon didn’t pay the £2 million dividend it handed out the year before. Given that it’s been making money hand over fist, that was presumably to avoid accusations of shareholders profiteering while Grenfell victims mourned. If so, good.

But lumping another £35,000 into the highest-paid director’s pay package (they don’t say who he is) will go down with Grenfell Tower survivors like a cup of cold sick.

McMafia comes true

Gulp. Kirill Kleymenov, a prominent Russian TV presenter, has warned “traitors” against moving to England and made a not-so-veiled threat about those who do.

“People get hanged, poisoned, they die in helicopter crashes and fall out of windows,” he said on his state-controlled news show.

Following the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal, this was a clear McMafia-style threat.

Few will be surprised at the obvious reference to Putin critic Boris Berezovsky, found hanged at his Berkshire mansion in 2013, or this week’s poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal.

But why the apparent reference to the British businessman Scot Young, who fell to his death from his Marylebone apartment window in 2014, or the mysterious helicopter crash that killed Stephen Curtis, lawyer to Russian tycoons in 2004?

Both men were well-known for working with powerful Russian businessmen — shady ones in both cases — but this is the first time they’ve been referred to as “traitors” to the Russian state in such a threatening manner.

Is it a public message that crossing Russian oligarchs is the same thing as working against the state? Certain corners of the London business scene also working with powerful Russian clients will be reaching tremulously for the vodka.