New M&S boss Marc Bolland's pay deal has got tongues clicking. It also indicates the scale of the task ahead.

Well you didn’t think he was going to do the job in exchange for free Y-fronts and prawn sandwiches for life, did you? Marc Bolland, the incoming CEO of M&S, has really got tongues clicking in disapproval. 'Excessive', sniffed the hair-shirt wearers and guardians of corporate morality at PIRC. 'This is a bad start for the new regime at M&S'.

I have to say, a golden hello of up to £15m is going it a bit, however high-flying the Dutchman. This is blood-sucking squid territory - with the disadvantage that Bolland is right slap-bang in the public eye, while those cephalopods  from Goldman lurk in the depths beneath the waves. Marc lives in the real world, on the high street, and has to look in the eye of the real workers on the tills who collect his wages. So it hasn't been a great week for new CEOs, after the publicity disaster that greeted Adam Crozier signing on the dotted line for ITV for up to £14m over five years. (My god he must be glad to be saying goodbye to that unruly rabble at the Royal Mail, though.)   

One thing Bolland's sizeable package hints at is the scale of the struggle that lies ahead. M&S needed Bolland in fast, and had to deal with his demands rapidly. It simply isn’t the UK’s favourite store any more. Regular billion-pound annual profits of the sort they enjoyed in the late 90s are a fading memory. M&S has been caught in a nasty squeeze between the upmarket merchants and the cost-cutters, both in food and in clothing. It’s not a pleasant place to be with the likes of New Look and Aldi snapping at your heels.  

My Auntie Clarice always gives me a M&S voucher for Xmas and I popped along to their store in Kensington the other day to blow it, thinking there could be a nice piece of schmutter of some description that might take my eye. There wasn’t. They’ve blown the Autograph sub-brand and Blue Harbour leaves me as cold as Primark. They’ve also stopped doing the semi-acceptable suede loafers (made in India) – and the last pair of socks I bought there fell apart after about three outings (try Tabio for your socks, gents - Japanese build quality). It was forty quid to replace the Panama that some light-fingered cove whipped from the Ryanair queue at Stansted last summer. No. I bought a couple of bottles of Barolo and made my exit.