Retailer Marks & Spencer said today it had shared out an £80 million bonus pool between staff as it revealed a better-than-expected 5.1% surge in fourth quarter sales.

Sir Stuart Rose is to leave Marks & Spencer by March next year and will take a pay cut of a quarter when he becomes non-executive chairman at the end of July.

Marks & Spencer bowed to pressure from investors today after chairman Sir Stuart Rose agreed to a 25 per cent pay cut for his final months with the high street giant.

Sir Stuart Rose hinted yesterday that he may step down early from the chairman's role at Mark's & Spencer, as he launched a robust defence of the £15m that the incoming chief executive, Marc Bolland, could pocket in his first year.

Marks & Spencer today warned of tough times ahead for shoppers in 2010 despite the retailer's first like-for-like sales growth in more than two years.

To the CBI shindig, where Britain's political leaders staged their own X Factor contest yesterday. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg faced more wrath from the business world's Simon Cowells than his rivals, though give him credit for having the guts to tell some of Britain's wealthiest people that he favours new taxes on wealth. One somehow feels the delegate who told Mr Clegg that Gordon Brown had showed more vision for business wasn't being kind to either of them.

Marc Bolland said he could not turn down the opportunity to become Marks & Spencer's chief executive yesterday, as he unveiled a sharp slowdown in Morrisons' third-quarter sales.

Outlook: Next and M&S might have reported better-than-expected sales figures yesterday but, of course, the focus on planet retail is not so much on the numbers themselves but on how they are put together.