Surely, we are ALL inclined to favour people of our own race (Patient's death 'reveals festering NHS racism', 13 February 2004).

Imagine a situation in which you see a boat capsize and two children, one black, the other white, thrown into the water and in danger of drowning. Which one will you attempt to save first: the white child or the black child?

As a newspaper editor, of course, you will maintain that the child's race is irrelevant and will not influence your choice. In practice, however, most black people will save the black child, most white people the white child, first.

Why? Because we are genetically programmed to care more about those to whom we are most closely related, i.e. with whom we share the most genes, of which skin colour, being a genetic marker, gives a good indication. We are also socially conditioned to identify, at least initially, with those who look most like ourselves. I certainly do.

My experience is that race only ceases to be particularly relevant among people who know each other personally. In the mass society in which we live, however, where the vast majority of people are strangers to us, we naturally and necessarily classify people, not just, but also according to race.

Also - while we are on the subject - if you look at British or European history (and prehistory) you cannot help but notice that they are, as Greg Dyke might put it, "hideously white". I can understand if British blacks and Asians are not entirely comfortable with that; but what can we do, if we cannot change it? Deny it? Pretend that it doesn't matter . . . ?