Adios, Mariano

Mariano Rajoy would never stand for a question about cocktails. He would never place himself in a position of potential lampooning by a Paxman. Rajoy is stiff, aloof, inaccessible and has taken the Iain Duncan Smith "quiet man" principle to a faux-hardman extreme. The deaf, dumb and blind PM sure plays a mean (but ineffectual) financial hardball. And when, on the rare occasion that he does venture before the people, as he did the other evening for his first television interview as prime minister (his first, note), he attempts to slap the hardball with all the authority, nervelessness and confidence that comes from using a particularly soggy piece of old rag.

The European Central Bank has announced its plan to buy up debt of virtual junk status from hard-pressed economies such as the Spanish in return for complying with a list of demands. Rajoy said that if Spain were to need a rescue (the subjunctive is pretty much irrelevant), he would not accede to conditions imposed from outside, i.e. those of the ECB and/or IMF.

Hardball? Not in the slightest. It was a statement for public consumption from a prime minister who lacks even the capacity for softball. Not if but when a rescue is needed, the terms and conditions will apply, and Rajoy knows it. The other night he dug his political grave by refusing to accept these conditions with a performance of hesitation that was without any persuasiveness. He is a lousy communicator and a lousy leadership figure.

Some time ago I was told that Rajoy believes he may not be prime minister much beyond the end of the year. I can't vouch for the veracity of this but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true, and if, more likely when, the ECB has to perform its bailout with all the Ts & Cs attached, then Rajoy would have to bail out. His position would be untenable.

Supportive noises from Frau Merkel, who has said she has confidence in the Rajoy government's cuts, are to be expected. Merkel needs to bolster Rajoy in order to try and avoid instability that might come were he to be cast aside. But Rajoy has always appeared to be a kind of post-Mourinho Avram Grant figure, a dead man walking, installed as a front man but also as a fall guy. He inspires little confidence, whatever Frau Merkel might say for spin purposes, and never has done. It's the lads in the PP dressing-room who seem to determine tactics; the gaffer is out on a limb having lost a dressing-room that he has never been truly in charge of.

One of the more extraordinary challenges to Rajoy from within his own party has come from Extremadura where the region's Partido Popular president has said that the 21% rate of IVA will not be applied and that a 13% rate will be instead. If this is evidence of gathering implosion within PP ranks, then having to bow to ECB demands could prove terminal, but one wonders if pre-emptive action might be taken with Rajoy a willing participant if he concedes that he is out of his depth.

A constructive vote of no confidence in Congress that is accompanied with the nomination of a candidate as a prime ministerial successor and so a continuation of government without resort to an election is technically possible. I'm not saying this will happen, just that it might or could, as Rajoy's performance on Spanish television will have done little to reassure nervous PP grandees, despite his attempt at hardball.

Where Rajoy succeeds in being a man of the people, or rather being like the people, is in conveying an impression of demoralisation, so capturing a national mood and one analysed in a remarkable article in "El País" which sought comparisons with the great loss of Spanish self-esteem when Cuba was lost in the 1898 war with the United States.

A bailout would be the final straw in this collective loss of esteem. One needs to appreciate the degree to which Spain, once something of a power, has struggled for years to regain some of this esteem only to now see it potentially blown apart by the humiliation that a bailout would represent. This is why Rajoy needs to be seen to be playing hardball. But he is not the man for the task as he suffers himself from the national affliction, forced into virtual silence and introspection, incapable of inspiring. Someone else is needed. A man (or woman) of the people. The question is who.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.