Was Richard Whiteley an MI5 spy?

Richard Whiteley wasn't just a master of letters and numbers. According to the Royle Family star Ricky Tomlinson, the Countdown host was once a spy for MI5 spy - and even helped send the actor to prison in the 1970s.

Tomlinson made the bizarre claim as the guest of honour at the reopening of a pub in Chester, where he once held meetings as a trade unionist decades ago.

Why did Tomlinson go to prison?

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

While working as a plasterer in 1972, Tomlinson and fellow unionist Des Warren organised a "flying picket" to travel around construction sites in the Shrewsbury area and encourage builders to join a national strike.

The group was accused of trespassing, vandalism and violence and in 1973, Tomlinson was found guilty of "conspiracy to intimidate" and spent two years in prison.

He maintains that he was set up by an anti-union government collaborating with corporate interests and has campaigned to have his conviction overturned.

Where does Whiteley come into it?

Whiteley was best known to TV audiences as the host of afternoon quiz show Countdown, which he presented from 1982 until his death in 2005. But in 1973, he and former politician Woodrow Wyatt co-presented a documentary about the builder's strike called The Red under the Bed.

Tomlinson claims the programme aired the night the jury in his trial retired to consider their verdict. "It was so anti-trade union that two of the jury changed their mind and brought a majority verdict in of 10-2 guilty," he told the Chester Chronicle.

He claims the film was "designed, written, made and paid for by the security services", adding: "Wyatt was a member of the security services and unbelievably so was Richard Whiteley, who hosted the show."

Is there any truth to the claim?

Tomlinson's accusation may sound outlandish to those who remember Whiteley as the genial face of Channel 4's teatime quiz.

Added to that, any time he spent as a spy would have been extremely brief – Whiteley joined ITN as a trainee in July 1965, almost immediately after sitting his final exams at Christ's College, Cambridge.

Kathryn Apanowicz, his long-time partner, dismissed the idea as "nonsense".

"He was the most indiscreet person I knew. He could not keep a secret for toffee," she told ITV, adding that Whiteley "couldn't work technology", "couldn't do maths" and struggled with the Countdown anagram round.

"Ricky Tomlinson should take a long, hard look at himself and stop casting such stupid aspersions because it's nonsense," she said. "He's made himself look a bloody fool."