The fate of M&S tells you everything you need to know about modern Britain

Should anyone care what happens to Marks & Spencer? It’s a funny business, retail. On the announcement that the company – still one of Britain’s biggest, with a market value of about £5.3bn – will close some 60 of its stores, the immediate thought I had was whether the outlets I use would be among those shutting.

Like rural post offices, bank branches and pubs, people seem to want to keep M&S shops open even if they never set foot in them from one end of the year to the other. If they did set foot in them and buy some gear, they wouldn’t be shutting the stores. A little paradox there.

But I do shop at M&S. It’s a family tradition. We’ve always gone there, and always will.

The abiding appeal of the department store is that they stock clothes that wear well, fit well and at least some of us consider quite stylish. Usually I am clothed head to toe in M&S, from underwear to overcoat, and I’m proud of it.

I should also declare a further interest in that I hold some shares in M&S too, such is my long-standing enthusiasm for the brand and confidence (however misplaced) in its ability to bounce back from whatever setbacks befall it.

Like me, though, the managers of “my” business can see that the long struggle to stay competitive in female fashion is over. Apparently M&S will never appeal to women under 40 years of age, and when trying to get down with the kids it has difficulty in keeping its older clientele simultaneously contented in their frocks and socks.

Better, then, to move on and capitalise on the brand’s extraordinary success in food, where its sure touch has not deserted it – it was always impressive in this field – and convert shops and floor space from empty aisles of slacks that nobody wants to the ready meals, snacks and fresh produce we all apparently crave.

My only plea is that M&S doesn’t chuck out the menswear along with the womenswear. Men with conservative tastes and a simple need to find trousers that fit have stayed more loyal, and profitable, than its female customer base. It would be nice to think we could still get a simple jacket or suit when we need one. How about standalone M&S Men stores as a bold marketing initiative?

The varying fortunes of M&S – poor on womenswear, good on food – may also tell us something interesting about the polarisation of consumer tastes. It is not an entirely new phenomenon, this shrinking of the “middle market” brands, but it may be accelerating.

Take food. For a decade or more, the middle market supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, even Morrisons – have been losing ground to surer-footed rivals at each end of the food shopping scale. Lidl and Aldi have mopped up the hard-pressed budget shoppers, with the occasional curious member of the middle classes looking for a bottle of bargain bubbly. At the same time, and no contradiction, Waitrose and M&S have enjoyed record success with their upmarket, more exotic offerings.

The same is happening with cars. BMW and Range Rover do very nicely, as do value makes such as Dacia and Kia. The squeeze hits the mid-market marques, the likes of Renault, Vauxhall and Seat, say. Similarly with air travel; Ryanair and easyJet prosper, as do the super-premium offerings from the established full-service carriers – but there’s less business for those who just want an airline seat with a meal and a drink thrown in.

So, in a rather attenuated way, the stories of M&S clothing (that mid-market squeeze) and M&S food (upmarket boom) may be falling into to that self-same pattern of consumer polarisation. Marks & Spencer, however, is lucky enough to be able to switch between the two, having a presence in each sector.

It could be – and here I admit to pushing the socio-economic boat out quite a bit – simply another symptom of a more divided and unequal society. The “haves” travelling BA Club World class, driving a Range Rover Evoque and popping down to Waitrose for a weekly shop (and into M&S Simply Food for their lunchtime sandwich) have never had it so good. By contrast, more of the sort of people Theresa May says are “just managing” have to spend their cash carefully, opting for a Dacia ahead of a Vauxhall, and taking advantage of whatever easyJet and Aldi can offer them.

These are the outward and visible signs of economic change. Clever companies make the most of these trends.

There was a time when M&S, like the NHS and the BBC, united the nation. No longer, though – and I must say I am sorry about that.