IT has been a week dominated by the country’s need to cut costs in order to tackle the crippling national deficit.

Disabled benefits hit. Firemen losing their jobs. Road programmes cancelled.

Business support reduced.

These have been the headlines in the two days which have followed George Osborne’s long-awaited speech.

Public spending must be cut by £81bn. Nearly 500,000 jobs must go in the public sector. It is a thoroughly miserable time for millions.

Against that disturbing backdrop, we have seen played out a seedy, shameful soap opera involving footballer Wayne Rooney.

Two days ago, the misfiring England striker declared that he wanted to leave Manchester United. The club couldn’t satisfy his ambitions, he said.

There was talk of a £2m-a-month move elsewhere.

But suddenly, Rooney no longer wants to leave Manchester United. It is once again the greatest football club in the world in his eyes and he’s sorry he ever doubted its ambition.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson bore the look of a man who had been dumped by his girlfriend a couple of days ago.

Yesterday, he was pictured with his arm round Wayne in a love-in straight from Mills and Boon.

We do not pretend to know what it was all about. But it has underlined how detached the money-mad world of football has become from the hardworking, ordinary people being asked to get the country out of a hole.