Wayne's world

In a week when this government announced the harshest spending review since the twenties, that will as usual hit the poorest in society to pay for the mistakes of the richest, Rooney and his agent show their sympathy by doubling his money to not far off 200K a week. And footballers wonder why they aren't liked very much. As Steve Richards says the comparison is grotesque, the saying was love United, hate the club,( hijacked to "love United hate Glazer") it could just as well be love the game, hate everybody involved in it. At least Howard Jacobson gives us a bit of light relief in today's Indie column.
Kevin McCarra explains what this week has conclusively shown, United aren't strong enough to have let Rooney to go. That is on and off the pitch. At any other time in Ferguson's tenure as manager of Manchester United, i am sure as sure can be that Fergie would have said nobody is bigger than the club and said goodbye, you can go but not to City. But he must know that without Rooney, never mind the fact that we would not be competing for trophies, we could well have been in a life and death struggle to come fourth. And that would have been life and death for the ownership of the Glazer's ownership of Manchester United. Which is why yesterday brought out such weird conflicting responses from not just me but plenty of other Manchester United fans. The sporting life report MUST'S correct response to a conclusion to a turbulent week.
Henry Winter thinks everyone's a winner, United, the player and football, he could have gone on to say the owners. This week has shown just how weak their position is when they have been basically faced down by their best player. But has this propped their position up, i have absolutely no idea, but it shows how precarious and ludicrous their "business plan" really is.
Jim White gives an overview of the weeks madness and ends up wondering if the assurances given to Rooney included informing him of the name of the next manager. It's a possibilty that they told him that Maureen was lined up, but assurance, i'm not so sure they could have given him that. I'd like to think that all this was not just about the money, but i can't bring myslef to believe that, unfortunately. Dan Roan of the BBC gives us a timetable of how the deal was sealed.
Daniel Taylor marvels at Ferguson's pragmatism and ability to adapt to the modern world and judge each case on what is best for Manchester United. Well we know his interest in politics and history, which has always meant that his overt support for the Glazer's has annoyed us even more. Sam Wallace attaches that pragmatism to an even keener desire to keep proving the doubters wrong.
The Telegraph give us a little history of the Manchester Education committee or " men in black " as they are named on fans forums.

Pakistan's Mohammed Asif has withdrawn his appeal against his provisional suspension, though the other two have not. Is he going to assist them in their inquiries in exchange for a non life ban, i wonder. The great Sir Viv Richards thinks Australia wil be no pushover and thinks one of the keys for England will be to target Ricky Ponting.

David Blanchflower's bete noire, current MPC member Andrew Sentence assures us that Osborne's cuts will not affect economic recovery, wow, he really is a paid up member of the laissez faire brigade. Paul Krugman hits back for the Keynesian deploring Osborne's budget as the equivalent of a fashion victim, following yesterday's fad. He compares it to the Snowden budget of 1931, i read Skidelsky's book of the 1929-1931 labour government last year, ouch.

Sean Collins looks at currency wars and warns that this will not be the way to get the economy out of its current mess as the group of 20 finance chiefs pledge to avoid weakening currencies. We shall see.
John Merry of Salford council explains the confidence trick that the government delivered to the public about local council cuts.

Peter Oborne writes that in his opinion the consensus that Camron and Osborne are joined at the hip politically is just wrong. He has Osborne down as a true Thatcherite whilst Cameron is much more the one nation tory that most pundits have them both down as being. He is probably the most interesting conservative columnist around. Whether he is right or not, i do not know. But the whole strategy of cutting deep and cutting early is not very one nation, it would seem to me.
Andrew Grice seems to be another political pundit to be coming round to the view that Osborne's spending review may have been too clever by half.

Jason Cowley looks back to an Edwardian Liberal policy, the land tax, whose time may have come again as both the Lib dems and Labour have promised to look anew at the subject in time to prepare for the next election's manifesto

Armando Ianucci sounds like a busy man with a lot of projects on the go during this interview with the guardian. Good news, his plan for the next season of the thick of it sounds interesting. The HBO comedy about the office of the vice president sounds very promising.

I hadn't even heard about this never mind seeing it, before i read about it in Richard Ingrams column this morning. And he was right what a nasty piece of work, born to wealth and above oiks like Jon Snow questioning him obviously. I think that is what might be termed not the way to do it.