To the rollcall of rumoured and confirmed celebrity spies is added a name that can more than hold its own alongside the likes of Cary Grant, Harry Houdini, Greta Garbo and Frank Sinatra.

It is Richard Whiteley – yep, the Countdown one – who has been fingered as an erstwhile MI5 agent by the former Royle Family star Ricky Tomlinson. Yes, apparently Richard was a spy the whole time he was sitting there openly decoding things on Countdown while dressed like Austin Powers – making him one of the few national treasures to hide in plain sight as something other than a paedophile.

You can’t libel the dead, which is perhaps why Ricky feels he can now go public with this eye-catching claim. Either way, let’s have a look at it.

Back in 1972, Ricky took part in the first national building workers’ strike, organised by a rank-and-file body known as the Building Workers’ Charter. He and 23 other strikers, who became known as the Shrewsbury 24, were arrested for conspiracy to intimidate, unlawful assembly and affray, and were put on trial in a controversial case that they have always maintained was politically motivated. It ended in 24 convictions, with Tomlinson handed a two-year sentence in 1973. He spent much of his year inside in solitary, including a 22-day hunger strike.

So, where does Richard Whiteley come into it all? Well, a documentary about the case was made by Yorkshire Television, produced by Woodrow Wyatt. The Red Under the Bed was broadcast on the very day the prosecution completed its case, in the rather more freewheeling era before the Contempt of Court Act. (An application for Yorkshire Television to be held in contempt was dismissed by the judge). Furthermore, the screening of the documentary was followed by a half-hour studio discussion hosted by Whiteley, whose final question, posed to the Tory MP Geoffrey Stewart-Smith, ran: “Can you give me one example in 1973 of blatant communist influence?” Stewart-Smith cited organised violence in the building strike by the Building Workers’ Charter. The jury went on to convict by a 10-2 majority.

Fast forward to the present day, and Ricky – who has never given up his protest against the conviction – announced: “We found out this week that the film was designed, written, made and paid for by the security services. Woodrow Wyatt was a member of the security services and, unbelievably, so was Richard Whiteley, who hosted the show. Richard Whiteley from Countdown was a member of the intelligence services.”

Well now. Ricky made this announcement in a Wetherspoons – and before you say, “Yeah, it does sound like shit I’ve said in a Wetherspoons,” I should explain it was the Wetherspoons relaunch party for the very pub in which he organised that fateful picket all those years ago.

Anyway: on to the evidence. Unfortunately, Ricky has declined to share the documents he says he has. But in a speech to the Commons a few years ago about The Red Under The Bed, Tom Watson highlighted a memo from a covert Foreign Office anti-communist propaganda unit, which states: “We had a discreet but considerable hand in this programme.” Then, at the end of 2015, newly released cabinet papers revealed that several of the most senior members of Edward Heath’s cabinet attempted to influence the jury, specifically by the commission and promotion of this documentary in hand with the security services. Heath himself read a transcript of the film and said: “We want as much as possible of this.”

But Whiteley as a knowing agent? I can’t see it myself, thinking it rather more likely he was put up to the job by Wyatt or someone else.

Still, never mind the view of Lost in Showbiz – what do those closer to the principals think? We begin with Richard’s longtime Countdown co-star and friend Carol Vorderman, who hasn’t quite turned over nine tiles spelling out BOLLOCKSS, but says: “I would be fascinated to see Ricky’s evidence.”

Then there is Richard’s friend Gyles Brandreth, who declares that Whiteley couldn’t have been a spy. He would have had to have been “the best in the business”, says Gyles, because he never said a word about it to him, even late at night when they were pissed. I do like this reasoning, as though not disclosing something to Gyles Brandreth is a guarantee it can’t be true. And yet – judging by the form book, Whiteley might have wisely assumed Gyles would have been giving the anecdote a second runout on The One Show before he had got even rid of the hangover. You know what they say: careless talk costs £5k for an after-dinner speech.

Elsewhere, Richard’s friend and former colleague Jonathan Aitken says that the presenter was once remarkably interested in an interview Aitken had conducted with Anthony Eden about the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, but warns: “From what I know about Mr Tomlinson, I would sup with a very long spoon.” High praise from Aitken, whose libel action against this newspaper collapsed before the legal team were able to formally defend the allegations that he pimped for his Saudi contacts. But perhaps he refers to Ricky’s period in the National Front, which he joined in 1968 over immigration and the wrong sort of people getting council houses (his views had travelled leftwards by the very early 70s).

Finally, there is Whiteley’s long-term partner, Kathryn Apanowicz, whose advice to Ricky “would be to take more water with it”. “If Richard was a member of the secret service,” she judges, “maybe Ken Dodd was in charge of MI5.” Having gone on to say that Whiteley couldn’t even work the VCR, she concludes: “I think Richard will be up there with Terry Wogan having a good laugh at the idea of him being a spy.”

Or is Richard up there in the celestial equivalent of MI5 – and I’m not ruling Wogan out of it – having a bloody serious discussion about commies with Cary Grant? We simply don’t have the evidence to discount the possibility, and must leave this file open until we do.