Jon Snow didn't take a job with the 'boring' BBC because he's 'a rebel, a maverick'

He also gave his opinion on Channel 4's latest BBC poach, Jeremy Paxman

Jon Snow said he didn’t find it “remotely difficult” to reject the BBC’s offer that would have seen him move from anchoring the Channel 4 News to fronting the One O'Clock slot.

“I'm a maverick, a rebel,” he told PA. “I question everything. Because I work at Channel 4, I have no fixed points to prevent me asking anything. I couldn't do those things at the BBC.”

Unlike the Home Office-approved, NHS-supported trial of skunk he took part in ahead of Channel 4’s Drugs Live programme in March – a weed smoking experience, he said, that left him “utterly bereft”.

Elsewhere during the interview, Snow went on to praise Channel 4’s latest BBC poach, Jeremy Paxman. The former Newsnight presenter has been drafted on to the team ahead of the channel’s upcoming General Election coverage.

“I admire old Paxo,” he said. “I thought it was a real coup. I was thrilled.

“He is the very best thing that's ever come along. We're not mates, but we're perfectly friendly. He's part of the national iconography.”

This could all be scuppered, however, if reports that Paxman is set to replace Sir Malcolm Rifkind as Kensington MP turn out to be true.