Listening to some people talk, you'd think that we, in this country, were racists to a man.

I don't think that's true, not for one minute. As a matter of fact I don't think that, by and large, Britain is a particularly bigoted country. Like every other nation we have our share of ignorant hotheads with chips on their shoulders and axes to grind, but the underlying truth is that despite the huge influx of immigrants over the centuries, this country has, historically, been able to assimilate them in a mostly civilised and courteous way.

When it comes to living alongside people whose colour, religion and general outlook differs from ours, we are probably one of the most tolerant nations on Earth.

Once we get over our surprise of finding that someone we meet looks a bit different to what we're used to, most of us try to treat that person just the same as anyone else – that is, according to the way they behave towards us and the extent to which they respect our traditional laws and customs.

Because of this generally trusting approach, we are often bewildered and sometimes frightened whenever racial prejudice, in any of its manifestations and from whatever direction, rears its ugly head, unbidden.

For instance, when the F1 stewards called Lewis Hamilton to account for his race behaviour, I do not believe that for one moment that there was any trace of racial prejudice in that decision. But Lewis himself chose to raise the issue, suggesting that he was being picked on "because I'm black" – a remark which, to his credit, he later retracted.

Of course the murder, 18 years ago, of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, a crime for which two white men were recently tried and convicted, keep racism fresh in our minds. Perhaps that's a good thing. That way we don't slip into complacency.

For sure, racism is a scary thing. Even more so because we don't understand it, don't expect it and consequently aren't very good at dealing with it on the now, thankfully rare, occasions we encounter it in its worst and most deliberate form.

Public bodies, such as local councils, seem to share these emotions and react by trying to eliminate race issues from whatever they do, however innocuous it might be. Like a farmer obsessively checking his fences, they present us with forms to fill in, demanding to know our ethnicity, in the unlikely event that on an unspecified date in the future, someone will accuse them of racial bias.

Personally, I always refuse to answer these questionnaires, partly because I don't think my ethnicity is relevant to my desire to, say, take an evening class in computerised Christmas card design, but mostly because I think it is the wrong way to achieve the ultimate goal of a tolerant and homogeneous society.

Encouraging people to go on labelling themselves – and thinking of themselves – as somehow a different kind of citizen is no way to go about it. We need to rub out these differences, not set them in stone. Rub out our superficial differences, while preserving our individual culture. Not an easy trick to pull off, but one which is essential if we are all to go on living together in peace and harmony.

This demands a conscious effort by all of us, to try to see the world – at least part of the time – through our neighbour's eyes, whatever colour he or she may be.

Trevor Phillips, Head of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, is quoted as saying that he thinks that Britain has become "by far the best place in Europe to live if you are not white". Well, I suppose that was very nice of him, but is it so very much of a compliment?

If you ask me, the time to start patting ourselves on the back is when we can truthfully say that, in this country at least, the colour of a man's skin is of no consequence whatever. To anyone.

That the very terms "black" and "white" as applied to people have no more meaning or relevance than the colour of someone's eyes or whether their ears stick out.

And when Mr Phillips is out of a job because we, in Britain, no longer need a racial awareness or equality watchdog to oversee relations between us.

We have made great strides in the right direction, but we are not there yet. One problem is that so long as people on both sides of the argument go on highlighting the differences between us, rather than emphasising those attributes, values and ideals which we have in common, evil men who see advantage in perpetuating racial tensions will continue to thrive. Don't let's give them that satisfaction.