Rajoy allies look to history A woman walks past overflowing refuse containers in central Madrid during a collectors" strike This summer, as Spain appeared to be hurtling towards an international financial rescue, Mariano Rajoy had made up his mind. As investors dumped their holdings of his country's debt, the Spanish prime minister shut himself in his office, refusing to watch television or listen to the radio and reading only the Spanish football daily Marca, and the Fara de Vigo, a local newspaper from his native Galicia. Spain, he pledged to his closest advisors, would never suffer the indignity of becoming the fourth European country to request a bailout. He was never going to pick up the phone to the International Monetary Fund or European Central Bank, and no amount of noise in the media or financial markets would convince him otherwise. For Mr Rajoy's critics, this anecdote from Mariano Guindal's account of Spain's financial crisis, The Days We Lived Dangerously, represents everything about the Spanish leader's character that has turned his leadership into a fracaso (calamity) - a provincial politician unwilling to accept reality, unsuited to solving a complex and international crisis. Elected one year ago this week with the largest absolute majority in his party's history, Mr Rajoy stood proudly on a podium last November pledging to a jubilant party faithful to march Spain to the sunlit uplands of recovery. Twelve months on the question of whether Spain will require a bailout, dismissed as ludicrous as recently as the summer by Mr Rajoy, is no longer even asked. It is taken as given. "We would all accept that errors have been made, too many errors," says a senior member of Mr Rajoy's Popular party who has known him personally for over a decade. Things have not always happened in the way he would have wanted them to. Five bites at the cherry Since coming to power last year, the government of Mariano Rajoy has announced five bouts of austerity Dec 2011 Provisional budget introduces €6.3bn in tax rises, €8.9bn in spending cuts, freeze on public hiring, wage freeze and longer hours for public sector workers Jan 2012 Mr Rajoy pledges no more public money for banks Feb Mr Rajoy unilaterally raises Spain's budget deficit from 4.4 per cent to 5.8 per cent, flouting agreed targets March The 2012 budget cuts ministries" spending by 17 per cent, introduces cuts of €18.4bn for regions and €3.1bn for municipalities, scraps rebates on corporate tax to raise €8.2bn and imposes higher levy on tobacco. First general strike takes place April Cuts in education and healthcare imposed May Government in effect nationalises Bankia June Government accepts €100bn EU bailout for Spain's banks. Mr Rajoy insists it is not a "rescue," then flies to Poland to watch Spain play football July €65bn of austerity measures for 2012-14 announced, including main VAT rate raised from 18 to 21 per cent, Christmas bonus (one month's pay) scrapped for civil servants, jobless benefits cut, tax rebate for mortgage holders scrapped, higher taxes and prices for energy and cut in rebates on employers" social security contributions August Mr Rajoy forced to say he would accept an international bailout September Revised budget plans will see 2013 government spending slashed 8.9 per cent. Barcelona stages biggest demonstration for Catalonian independence since the days of Franco Oct Brief respite for the government as Mr Rajoy's Popular party wins regional election in Galicia Nov Second general strike takes place So strongly established now is the view that Mr Rajoy's first year in office has been strewn with disasters, ranging from screeching policy reversals on taxation to a humbling request for a European banking bailout, that it has become rare to find foreign government officials, economists or investors willing to defend him. At home, having just faced his second general strike, the Spanish prime minster is witnessing the political consequences of his government's austerity measures that have seen reversals on many of the pledges he was elected under. For Ángel Pascual-Ramsay of the ESADE Business School, and a former advisor to Spain's previous Socialist government, the Rajoy government was born with the "original sin" of having failed to prepare in opposition - and as a result it spent much of its first crucial three months in power improvising. "The government had begun to believe its own hype in opposition, that once they were in power the markets would trust in them," he says. They were soon overtaken by events. Many government ministers were notified of their appointment just days, or even hours, before the news was made public, meaning key ministries were lacking their support staff at even as late as the start of this year. Once the government began to make reforms, such as its first banking sector overhaul, the largest changes were at first shirked. Bankia, the savings bank dominated by Mr Rajoy's Popular party, was deemed not to need any public money. By May it had requested a €19bn state rescue, triggering the breakdown in market confidence in Spain that by June saw Spain request up to €100bn in European aid for its financial sector. "It was a wasted opportunity," says Luis Garicano, a professor at the London School of Economics. If you think of the amount of power this government has, then clearly there was a lot of scope for action. Instead they improvised a lot, and concentrated too much on the budget and not enough on the necessary structural reforms. But many of Mr Rajoy's problems, according to those closest to him, have stemmed not from a lack of effort or execution, but from botched presentation and communication. A natural recluse who appears to dislike speaking in public, and is known to fear letting slip what he is thinking to even his closest allies, the Spanish prime minister would appear to be ill-suited to modern politics. Honed first in the local government, and later in the ministerial roles that rarely required him to think beyond the borders of Spain, he has also been accused of failing to grasp until too late that Europe's debt crisis required once domestically minded leaders to please multiple, and often contradictorily audiences - voters, investors, European allies - all at once. Yet these same characteristics may too turn out to be the Spanish leader's greatest strength. Having refused to accept a bailout in the summer, when other more reactive politicians might have opted for what seemed like the safer option, could mean Spain will now not need to accept painful further conditions in the future. At the same time, a victory in regional elections in his home region of Galicia, a traditional stronghold for his party, proved to wavering supporters that Mr Rajoy's austerity measures have not yet become poisonous for his party. And his refusal to be drawn into debate has helped contain tensions between Madrid and Catalonia, where an election on Sunday could see the region march towards a referendum on independence. "He may now be being criticised, but he is a different type of politician, one that won't ever be charismatic, but who thinks slowly about the best decisions, and takes them," says the party member. "Wait and see, in four years" time people will recognise what he has done. History is not made in a year.