How the mighty fall – then rise, then fall again. The icy mood enveloping UK high streets has exposed brutal questions about the real strength of Marks and Spencer’s recovery under Sir Stuart Rose after its late-1990s tumble from grace.

Hop aboard a time machine back to the last UK recession of 1990-92, when M&S was still the high street king. Year-on-year profits fell only once – at the half-year in 1991-2, the depths of the gloom, though full-year profits increased. Yet its total UK sales were at best growing in single digits, with like-for-like sales sometimes down. Its shares traded on high-teen price/earnings multiples. Contrast that with like-for-like sales down 4.5 per cent in this year’s first quarter, and 6 per cent in the second. Consensus forecasts now see this year’s profits down 40 per cent.