It was early but as Work and Pensions Secretary he was always up early perfecting whatever task he had in hand, with the aim of making Great Britain greater still. And as he stood there in his blue and white striped pyjamas, with a silk dressing gown to keep out the morning chill, he was near bursting with national pride.
There below the ha-ha at the bottom of his garden - just before the orchards, to the left of the swimming pool and tennis courts - was a scale model of the Olympic arena which he had been slaving over for a month.
He was very proud of it. It had taken him a great deal of effort and thought, as he directed his gardener to create it out of styrofoam and balsa wood, and the occasional flogging the servant had needed to correct his modelling mistakes had pained Iain greatly.
As the thought occurred to him, he rolled one arm in its shoulder joint to ease a twinge.
'This will make the country love me,' he told himself. 'The PM will realise this must be the basis for the Olympics opening ceremony, and all our policies for the future. A true celebration of all that our nation should be.'
Across a circular 'arena' the gardener had fashioned Iain's vision. There were green fields made of AstroTurf, little houses adapted from Iain's train set, and a variety of scenes depicting his political and Olympian vision.
One half of it was for the rich, and one for the poor. On the poor half there was a starting and a finish line, and the poor had to improve and meet Iain's targets along the way.
At the start line there were terraces and tower blocks, and lots and lots of people. Some of them were drug addicts, with weaselly faces, who were depicted stealing from one another, rioting, and fighting the lines of police by hurling javelins at them. Some of them were brown.
Iain was particularly proud of the flame-thrower which had been positioned beneath the area, which would send up random bursts of fire to torch the criminal underclass which couldn't escape.
The poor who fled the flames would have to wash, so that any of them who were brown would become white, and then move on to a running track. They might not want to run anywhere but would be made to using electronic ankle tags and high-powered magnets which would pull them along. Stewards would then use fishing rods to hold tax credits under the noses of the poor and induce them into high jumps.
Those that completed the athletics section of the course would then be given a choice - to join serfs toiling in the fields with horse-drawn ploughs, home-made jam and cold (not warm) pasties, or to enter the gymnastics section to cavort before an effigy of Simon Cowell.
What the poor didn't realise of course was that this was a trick, and one with which Iain was quietly thrilled. The serfs would toil quietly while those who debased themselves before Cowell would pay the price. As each person finished their act, Cowell's eyes would shoot fire and his jaw would dislocate like a snake's, and he would eat each of them alive.
There was no escape from this section - anyone who tried to scale the fences would be harried to death by Ant and Dec.
The only way out was to be the one in a million contestants who win, when Cowell would allow them through a gate which would lead only to a supermarket.
Probably an Asda, but maybe a Morrisons, he didn't really care so long as one of the proles' eateries coughed up sponsorship. Inside it a series of former X Factor winners would carry out synchronised shelf stacking while making lightly-racist remarks about Chinese drummers.
In one corner, locked into a pen, were some unmarried mothers, whose job was to weep and wail and pull at their hair while loudly decrying their selfishness. Their only way out of the pen was to enter a charmingly rural sheep dip, where Eric Pickles would completely immerse them by sitting on their heads and after which they would be considered clean enough to marry one of the male serfs.
There would be no other kind of marriage allowed at Iain's finish line.
At the border between the rich and poor halves celebrities would enter competitions of their own in an attempt to 'cross over' the series of high bollards between them and their final goal. Iain sipped his tea and narrowed his eyes as he picked out the Robbie Williams figurine, which was rubbing itself against an obstacle. There was Helen Mirren, neatly negotiating her way through. There were comedians larking around like jesters in an attempt to be allowed across the bollards, and a squadron of WAGs battering themselves against the barriers while squawking loudly in regional English.
Among them somewhere was Nancy Dell'Olio, depicted wandering off and eating some grass.
Sitting upon the bollards, and throwing faeces at everyone beneath them, were journalists. Some of them were mooning, Iain noted with disdain. The gardener would need another flogging.
Beyond the barricades was a short line of millionaires in suits, sitting on horses and using rifles to shoot the journalists down. They were matched shot for shot by a similar line on the poor side of the barriers, in slightly scruffier suits and armed only with rotten vegetables. Some of them were throwing missiles at the suited men on horseback, who in turn sent a few stray bullets back. This was the 'political divide', and Iain looked down upon his fellow MPs fondly.
'What good work we do,' he thought to himself with a smile.
Behind the Tories in the rich sector were rolling green meadows, some carefully washed cows, and a thatched Tudor mansion worth £2million not unlike the one at the top of Iain's garden, and pictures of which have of late been removed from various newspaper websites.
It had orchards, just like his one, tennis courts and a swimming pool. There was even a little blonde Betsy, if you looked hard enough (she had insisted, something or other about it being her daddy's house and Iain hadn't paid a penny, he hadn't really listened but best to keep the little lady happy!).
In the garden of the model house was a model of Iain himself, head shining in the early morning sun, with Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, stood beside him.
Iain had thought about using the Queen, but she wasn't as pretty. He frowned slightly as he looked at the waving Kate figure, and made a mental note to make sure that when this all got the go ahead his secretary would speak to the palace and make sure she was going to wear something new. The girl had an unenviable middle class habit of wearing the same clothes as often as twice, and that would never do.
Iain sighed with pleasure as he sipped his tea again. He had sent his plans through to the PM yesterday, it couldn't be long before he got a call telling him to go ahead. Then all it needed was to round up the people to take part, and sit back to await the international praise which would be heaped upon him.
Just then the pocket of his dressing gown vibrated with the pleasing sound of madrigals, and Iain fished out his mobile. At last! "Dave! Hi!" he said. "How are you this fine day?"
"Iain, you ******* ****, what the **** do you think you are ******* playing at you little ********?"
"Um, sorry, I don't follow you?"
"This ******* crazy Olympics opening ceremony idea of yours! Have you gone abso-*******-lutely mental, you dip**** ******* twazzock?"
Iain was stunned, frightened even. Was it possible someone didn't see he was right?
"Your plan says you're going to round up one million people at gunpoint, march them to Stratford, and then kill them off a dozen at a time! ******* flamethrowers! FLAMETHROWERS!"
Iain stammered. "B-b-b-but I thought that was the kind of thing we wanted to show? The best of Britain? Overcoming the riots, solving drug problems and stopping reoffending, you know..."
"Yes but we're not supposed to do it by means of mass murder! I'm not even going to start on what Priti Patel's going to say about the washing thing, and I'm sure Eric would quite enjoy the sheep dip, but morals aside the whole thing's a logistical nightmare."
Iain interrupted: "Cowell says he'd love to do it."
"Yes, I bet he would. Celebrities can always be relied upon to do idiotic stuff, but there's no way even our friendly journalists are going to volunteer to go in front of a firing squad you stupid little ****.
"Aside from all that, putting the murder and blood and torture played out in front of a 1 billion-strong worldwide TV audience which is something even the Chinese didn't dare to do, can you tell me how in the name of ******* ******* arse you're going to persuade Kate to stand there and ******* wave all the way through it?"
"Er, well, I'm sure..."
"Forget it Iain. FORGET IT. Stick to screwing up the welfare state like I told you to and let's leave the Olympics to Seb and his chums. Danny Boyle's doing it now anyway."
Iain's mouth flapped sadly as the PM hung up. Iain gazed once more upon his balsa and AstroTurf dream, but this time with gloom in his heart.
What if ... what if Britain wasn't what he thought it was after all? What if he was... wrong?
He sighed, then laughed. Of course that wasn't possible! He heard the clatter of fine bone china cutlery in the house and turned to go into breakfast with lovely Betsy, in the house he hadn't paid for, earning £134,565 a year for emitting wild ideas which were generally ignored by the people who paid him because everyone thought he was utterly mad.
"I'll just have to come up with a new idea," he said to himself as he went indoors.
The gardener watched him go, and plotted his revenge.
