This isn't just any gusset anxiety, this is M&S gusset anxiety and it's at an end.

IN January 2008, Jeremy Paxman wrote an angry letter to then Marks & Spencer boss Sir Stuart Rose about the state of his pants. 

- Simon

They were letting him down. The Newsnight presenter said: "I've noticed that something very troubling has happened. There's no other way to put this. The pants no longer provide adequate support. When I've discussed this with friends and acquaintances it has revealed widespread gusset anxiety."

This was funny, but Paxman meant it. His complaint resonated with large sections of the population who had grown up thinking of M&S as a staple of the high street and had lately found it disappointing.

Certainly, the gap between the glamorous adverts, often starring Twiggy, and the in-store experience was huge.

The feeling in the City, and among customers, was that M&S - part of British life since 1884 - was complacent. Chief executives came and went and either decided the problems were too big to fix or simply didn't notice them in the first place. They took their share options and moved on.

Only when Archie Norman, the former MP and chief executive of Asda, arrived as chairman in 2017 was there any sense of urgency.