Yes, it’s that Kelvin MacKenzie of the glorious Sun, breaking into your Guardian. What’s more, I am sounding off about immigration. Don’t all rush to the doors. You expect me to be Nigel Farage’s lieutenant, don’t you? Wrong. I believe immigration has been good and necessary for this nation, that we should thank the people who came for keeping our economy strong. How daft do you have to be not to realise we would not have defeated the recession without labour?

When I was growing up in Camberwell, south London, the area was almost all white and working class. They stuck together, looked after each other, didn’t even like other white people from elsewhere. It was a fortress mentality. But the fortress would, of course, crumble.

I remember a nice guy called Muhammad, a consultant’s son on our rather upmarket council estate, who paid me to wash his car. As I grew up, we started to get used to seeing different skin colours. A few Afro-Caribbeans moved in. What I remember most about them was their style. It was particular.

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From then to now, British public opinion on migration has too often been emotionally charged and uninformed. Just before the European and local elections last May, I took part in a Channel 5 discussion on immigration. As it went on, I was discomfited and at times baffled. One woman newspaper columnist was tough and uncompromising on the issue. A columnist should, I thought, be embracing clever people – white, black, brown, green, of whatever colour.

In some ways I suspect I was once similar to her. During my 12 years as Sun editor I am sure minorities – and even majorities – were maligned. Editors think they know everything, that they have an umbilical cord to the thought processes of readers. They simply don’t.

On that programme I appeared to be the only white person making the pro-minority argument. I am used to bear pits, but this was different, scary almost. No one was listening.

Stranger still: when I spoke it went deathly quiet. Usually when I speak everyone starts shouting and hollering. I felt more and more like an outsider. They must have had me down as being an extremist. When I didn’t conform to their prejudice they were shocked. Strangely and unusually I felt vaguely threatened.

In recent years, I’ve become aware of how language demeans settled minorities and incomers. They are not a disease or rats bringing pestilence. How do they feel, those working hard, doing their best? OK, we are a small island that has to control numbers. I don’t think newcomers should get benefits and free health service for the first six months, except in real emergencies. Asians and black people or eastern Europeans aren’t all angels. Nor are white people. There’s good and bad in everyone.

Cameron’s failure to embrace those of different colour and language will almost certainly lead to Labour sneaking in

The far more serious problem is that some cultural groups have shocking attitudes and behaviours – how they treat women, for example. And the Islamists: they are a real threat to our way of life. We need to be tough with them. The deal is non-negotiable: you live and work here and make a better future for your families. In return this nation expects you to be law-abiding, to learn English and live by its rules. Does anybody honestly believe the vast majority of migrants don’t want that too?

I have looked at the research, the cost-benefits tables. They confirm that migration contributes to this nation. But bigots are like those three monkeys – they don’t see, hear or speak facts. Our country would shut down without minorities. Who would run our shops, our hotels, our fashion stores. Drive our white vans, run our restaurants. The Poles who used to clean and build for us now run their own companies.

But here I part company with Guardianistas. I want the Tories to win the general election. I fear they won’t as in part David Cameron has failed in his nine years of “leadership” to woo migrant communities. The electoral effect has been disaster for the Tories: in the 2010 election only 16% of ethnic minorities voted Conservative – far fewer than those who support the Tory equivalent in Canada. The difference: they have a minister of immigration who is the water carrier to the top table when a minority group has an issue. Whichever party is in power should do the same.

The effect of Cameron’s failure to embrace those of different colour and language will almost certainly lead to Labour sneaking in. God help us if it does. Perhaps the next Tory leader will learn from this fatal error. I hope so.