Alastair Stewart says he has “moved on” following his departure from ITV News.
The news reader, 68, stepped down from his role in January, saying that he made a “misjudgment which I regret”.
A Twitter exchange, in which he quoted a Shakespeare passage, including the phrase “angry ape”, is thought to have led to his departure from ITN.
I adore this man. I have adored working alongside him, watching him operate, learning from him, giggling with him, taking his advice, and being able to say to people, I know that news @itvnews legend Alastair Stewart. It’s been an honour, Al xx pic.twitter.com/sLsKLdYkox
— ranvir singh (@ranvir01) January 29, 2020
“I don’t wish to go back into ITV News,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
“I have no desire to go down that road…I’ve moved on.”
He added: “The decision that I took very clearly back in January, was to draw a line and not sit in my lovely farmhouse in Hampshire and weep and do the sums of my pension.
“I said: ‘OK, fine, what else can I do?’ I’ve got the experience that I’ve got. Nobody can take that from me. I’m the age that I am, I can’t do anything about that. But there might be something to offer.”
Talking about the use of language more widely, he said in an interview with Times Radio: “People are having to be so desperately careful nowadays.
“But I think that can constrain freedom of debate, freedom of discussion and I regret that… whether it’s in terms of sexual gender politics or whether it’s about race.”