Jon Holmes has spoken up about being axed from Radio 4's The Now Show because it was felt the programme needed more "diversity".

This morning the Mail on Sunday ran a front page story with a picture of Holmes and the headline of: "BBC sacked me for being a white man."

The piece went on to discuss the fact that Holmes had been dropped because the show was being recast with “more women and diversity” . Fellow long-time contributor Mitch Benn was also dropped from the programme this week. 

Holmes however has tweeted that the headline which sounds like a direct quote most definitely isn't: "Well, let's just clear this up. That headline isn't a quote, or what I've said at all."

And he followed up later today with a tweet explaining how the story in the Sunday tabloid came about. Holmes wrote that: "I didn’t go to the Mail, they doorstepped my family this week after my tweet on Monday. They were going to run a story anyway, so I asked for space to write something level-headed which, to be fair, they have run alongside their 'story’. And the photo of my wife and I is 4 years old from a Sunday Times travel piece which they’ve plucked from an archive. We certainly didn't pose for them as it appears to indicate. I realise no-one probably cares, but thought I’d just make that clear.”

Read the full coverage in the Mail on Sunday here.