Radio presenter and comedy writer Danny Baker has been fired from BBC Radio 5 Live, following a “stupid unthinking gag.”

Last night the broadcaster deleted the tweet, which showed an image of two people holding hands with a chimp, dressed in clothes.

It was captioned “Royal Baby leaves hospital.”

Baker was accused of mocking the Duchess of Sussex’s racial background.

“Once again. Sincere apologies for the stupid unthinking gag pic earlier”, the former presenter wrote on Wednesday night.

“Was supposed to be joke about Royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as about monkeys & race, so rightly deleted.

Royal watching not my forte.”

Today he followed it up saying: “Just got fired from bbc5live.”

A BBC spokesperson told Prolific London’s sister site Prolific North: “This was a serious error of judgment and goes against the values we as a station aim to embody.

Danny’s a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us.”

On Thursday morning BBC Controller, Jonathan Wall, sent an email to 5 Live staff saying: “I have just spoken to Danny Baker and let him know that he will no longer be presenting his weekly show with us.

“Danny made a serious error of judgement on social media last night and it goes against the values we live and breathe on this radio station.

“Danny has been a brilliant broadcaster for us and I want to thank him for his work with us on Saturday mornings over the last few years.”

Baker has since posted a series of tweets to his 503,000 followers detialing the media reaction to his sacking.

He later posted an terse tweet about a call he received from the BBC telling him he was fired.

Baker, 61, was born in Deptford, south east London, and has enjoyed a long and frutiful media career, having worked in print, radio and TV since the late 1970s.

He first joined the BBC in 1989, working on the London GLR station.

Baker presented the Weekend Breakfast show, which was produced by a then unknown Chris Evans.