Sir David Michels reveals ambitions to become M&S chairman as Myleene Klass takes a pay cut

“I would love to become chairman of M&S,” he said told the Times. “It’s not a perfect company — no company is — but to me it has an extraordinary heritage and a place in our psyche. And it’s great fun. It’s difficult to manage but it is an extraordinary company and I still think that as well as having a great past it has a great future.”

Some shareholders however are said to think that Michels is too close to Rose, an accusation he denies.

“I’m going to be prejudiced, obviously, but I think we have satisfied most institutions over the last year. The company is so visible and the general corporate governance is entirely satisfied,” he said.

Separately, the Telegraph reported that one of the faces of M&S advertising campaigns, Myleene Klass has had her £1m salary cut to £750,000 and models including Elizabeth Jagger, Erin O’Connor and Lily Cole have been dropped from future advertising campaigns.

The models have featured in Marks & Spencer television and print advertisements for the past few years. Sixties icon Twiggy will continue to appear alongside Klass in a new advert celebrating the retailer’s 125^th year.

A Marks & Spencer spokesman said: “Myleene has re-signed and we will still be working with Twiggy who will be in adverts celebrating M&S’s 125th birthday.

“As far as the other models goes, we have an ongoing relationship with them but they have not currently been signed up for anything definite. We still hope to carry on working with them but there is nothing specific planned at the moment.”