Angus Deayton thinks the BBC is more worried about censorship than ever.
The 63-year-old star thinks the network should have grown increasingly more progressive but believes the public broadcaster makes it difficult for comics to work because it is so politically correct.
He said: "Auntie caters a little bit too much to retired colonels in Cheltenham and is too worried about offending. It’s odd because you’d think things would progress, but the BBC has got worse.
"You have to be more wary, you probably have to censor yourself slightly more now than you ever did. The corporation should have moved on, followed in the footsteps of Channel 4.
"But we live in a more politically correct age. It’s the most difficult environment to work in, always has been."
Angus was fired from ‘Have I Got News For You?’ after 12 years in 2002 when he was revealed to have used cocaine and been unfaithful to his then-partner, Lise Mayer, but the presenter believes the scandal changed his career for the better.
He told Event magazine: "When you are in a long-running series you don’t look outside it because you don’t really need to do much else.
"When you don’t have that you are much more open to offers, like presenting ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ or making a motoring show in Madagascar with Mariella Frostrup.
"These are things I probably would not have done if I had been chairing a regular weekly quiz. There are always silver linings."
But the ‘Waterloo Road’ actor doesn’t think it changed him as a person.
He added: "I don’t feel as if I have changed at any specific juncture of my life. I think most people who meet me now would say I was roughly the same person as when I was 19 or 20."
Angus Deayton slams BBC censorship
