Sir David Attenborough has said the BBC was “absolutely right” not to pay the sum needed to snap up The Great British Bake Off – but it was wrong to sack Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson.

In an interview with the Radio Times, the broadcaster said the BBC had done the right thing not to pay any sum to secure the baking show, which broadcast on the BBC for the last time last week.

The BBC lost the rights to Bake Off in September, after being outbid by Channel 4, who agreed a £75m three-year deal for the show.

At the time the BBC said it “made a very strong offer to keep the show”. Asked if they were right not to renew a deal with the production company, Love Productions, Attenborough told the Radio Times: “Oh, absolutely right! To say to them: ‘If you want another million, go ahead, we’ve got plenty more ideas where that came from’.”

But Attenborough took issue with the BBC’s decision to sack controversial Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, citing a need for his “profoundly anti-establishment” voice.

The BBC announced in March that it had dropped Clarkson after it was revealed that he was responsible for an “unprovoked physical and verbal attack” that left a colleague bleeding and seeking hospital treatment.

Jeremy Clarkson was fired by the BBC in March, after an ‘unprovoked physical and verbal attack’ on a producer. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/PA

At the time the BBC director general, Tony Hall, said he took the decision to end Clarkson’s BBC career “with great regret”, two weeks after he was suspended following a “fracas” with a member of the Top Gear production team. He added the presenter had “crossed a line”.

Co-hosts James May and Richard Hammond quit in solidarity – the trio will be reunited for a new motoring show, The Grand Tour, for Amazon Prime.

The former BBC2 controller said: “I regret letting Clarkson go, because it’s very good to have a voice that’s anti-establishment, or so profoundly anti-establishment.”

In a wide-ranging interview Attenborough also revealed himself to be anti-Brexit, calling the current situation a mess. He criticised the decision of David Cameron to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.

“There’s confusion, isn’t there, between populism and parliamentary democracy,” he said. “I mean, that’s why we’re in the mess we are with Brexit, is it not? Do we really want to live by this kind of referendum?

“What we mean by parliamentary democracy is surely that we find someone we respect who we think is probably wiser than we are, who is prepared to take the responsibility of pondering difficult things and then trust him – or her – to vote on our behalf.”

