If one more person points out the irony of liberal Britain returning two fascist members to the European Parliament in the year that a black president assumed office in conservative America, I’m going to bleach my skin, shave off my bouffant, purchase a pair of Doc Martens and kick them in the head.

The observation is idiotic not only because being an MEP is hardly equivalent to being elected president of the US, and because if there was a British prime ministerial candidate of Obama’s charisma and talent he would be elected in a shot, but mainly because the idea that Americans are naturally fascistic, while the British are not, is a myth.

Eavesdrop on any pub conversation, listen to any talk radio show, glance at the comments on any newspaper website and you will discover that the inhabitants of this green and pleasant land are as right-wing as any Yank, in favour of the reintroduction of National Service, public floggings and hanging for the most minor of misdemeanours. It is only our particular system of representative democracy that protects us from ourselves.

Indeed, I would go farther and say that, in my experience of living and working in the US, which probably amounts to about a year in total, a great many of the stereotypes that the British commonly propound about Americans, both good and bad, are actually applicable to us — not least the hoary old idea that America is responsible for most of the crap TV that is exported around the world.

This may have been true in the Eighties, with programmes such as Knight Rider, Dynasty, The A-Team and Street Hawk, but now many of the best things on British television — The Wire, The Sopranos, House, etc — are American exports and a significant amount of the crap on American TV — American Idol, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, The Weakest Link, Piers Morgan — is of British origin.

Then there is the idea that Americans are brilliant at customer service, while the British are not. This is a superficially appealing idea, given that American companies do make a song and dance of caring, but I think you’ll find that behind the script, the smiling and the wishing you a nice day, when things go wrong the British are not as intransigent, if only because complaints are so rare. I complained about a hotel room in Norfolk on a comments card the other day, being too British to kick up a fuss face to face, and was immediately given a 50 per cent refund. The matter was resolved without a single cross word being exchanged, whereas you could spend days of your life hollering at the morons who man the customer service lines of various US mobile phone operators and get nowhere.

Which brings us to the other false stereotype about North America: that its citizens are much more open-minded, go-getting and innovative than the British, who are stuck in their ways. This is plainly not the case when it comes to technology: Americans have proved oddly reluctant to pick up on new gadgetry such as “cellphones” and texting, and the US motor industry has virtually collapsed as a result of its total inability to innovate. We Brits love beating ourselves up about our inability to manufacture anything — but when you look closely you will quickly discover that we are home to thousands of highly innovative manufacturing companies, including several of the world’s leading motor racing teams.

I could go on. The idea that ghastly Americanisms are destroying the beautiful English language is ludicrous, given that some of those Americanisms — such as “gotten”, “fall” (for autumn), “obligate” and “I guess” were originally English words and phrases that we stopped using. The notion that American journalism is better than the British equivalent is untenable, too: admittedly, when The New York Times and The New Yorker are good they are very good, but they are also inclined towards self-indulgence — and US journalism in general is boring and pretentious. As one of those supposedly great American journalists, the late R.W. Apple Jr, once put it in a moment of self-awareness in 1986: “Some of our best journalists take themselves even more seriously than the politicians they write about.”

Then there is the self-deprecating notion that America is a global power while Britain, in contrast, exercises zero influence. But the other day, when it came for Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to single out the “most treacherous” Western power apparently destabilising the Islamic republic, it was Britain and not the US that he chose to name and shame.

And the idea that Americans are somehow more emotional than Brits is idiotic: the reaction to Jacko’s death last week, with the exception of a few hateful ironic indie kids at Glastonbury, was as hysterical over here as over there, and I cannot think of a single senior British politician who has not at some point wept on GMTV’s sofa.

But perhaps the one thing that epitomises the reversibility of transatlantic stereotypes is Hugh Grant’s recent behaviour in New York City. I don’t think it would be too controversial to argue that Grant is quintessentially British and that no one else has done more to publicise the idea of us as a race of self-effacing, self-deprecating, painfully polite, doily-obsessed overboilers of vegetables, who, when not queueing politely or reading W.H. Auden, are taking tea with elderly aunties in Kensington Gardens with our little fingers raised in the air. In contrast, the Americans, are, of course, ghastly and vulgar and fat and rude.

But what was Grant filmed doing the other day, on his way to a restaurant in the Big Apple? Irritated by snappers asking him where all the ladies were that night, he seemed to aim a kick at a photographer’s groin. The photographer’s response, according to one report, was: “That wasn’t cool. I was trying to be a nice guy. I was trying to help you find a cab.” And while accounts of the incident didn’t give us the photographer’s nationality, his politeness in response to such seemingly uncouth British behaviour suggests to me that he was, in fact, American.

sathnam@thetimes.co.uk

Times Recommends

• Bank charges hit us for being human
• Sorry, Father, thou still shalt not steal
• The shed where Santa’s failures go to die