The 2026 Guide to Bullshit: A Complete Taxonomy of Modern Britain's Most Reliable Export.
Everything you need to recognise when you're being had.
You know what I’ve been doing for the past year? Collecting bullshit. Not as a hobby—more as a public service, really. Every time I heard a politician say “going forward”, every time a council consultation turned out to be theatre, every time someone rebranded cuts as “transformation”, I wrote it down.
Turns out Britain’s most reliable export in 2026 isn’t financial services or creative industries. It’s bullshit. Industrial-scale, professionally packaged, entirely reasonable-sounding bullshit that’s been refined to an art form.
And here’s the thing—after twelve months of documenting this stuff whilst watching institutional dysfunction become performance art, I’ve realised something important: the bullshit isn’t random. It’s systematic. It’s categorised. It follows patterns. Once you learn to spot these patterns, you can’t unsee them.
So I’ve compiled everything. A complete taxonomy. Your field guide to recognising when you’re being had. Think of it as a year’s worth of pattern recognition distilled into one convenient reference document.
Because the first step to dismantling any system is understanding how it works.
Here’s what I’ve got.
Category 1: Linguistic Bullshit (Words That Mean Nothing).
Corporate Speak.
“Going forward” – we messed up, pretending time starts now
“Stakeholder engagement” – we sent an email nobody read
“Lessons will be learned” – they won’t
“Robust processes” – we’ve got a PDF somewhere
“Delivering outcomes” – doing things, but making it sound important
“Deep dive” – we might look at this properly, we won’t
“Circle back” – hoping you’ll forget you asked
“Low-hanging fruit” – easy stuff we should’ve done years ago
“Synergy” – used by people who don’t do actual work
“Moving the needle” – pretending small changes matter
Political Waffle.
“Hard-working families” – everyone else excluded
“International community” – America and whoever they bullied
“National conversation” – we’ve already decided
“Difficult decisions” – shafting poor people
“Level playing field” – rigged game
“Taking back control” – giving control to different people
“World-beating” – mediocre but British
“Reform” – making things worse with better branding
NHS & Public Service Bollocks.
“Transformation” – cuts with a rebrand
“Efficiency savings” – cuts
“Integrated care” – everyone’s confused together now
“Pathway” – we made a flowchart, problem solved
“Service user” – patient, but dehumanised
“Health tourist” – racist dogwhistle, zero evidence
Category 2: Statistical Bullshit (Lies With Numbers).
Employment Figures Theatre.
Zero-hour contracts count as “employment”
Universal Credit sanctions vanish people from stats
One hour per week equals “employed”
Anyone on government schemes disappears from count
NHS Waiting Time Magic.
Clock stops at referral, not treatment
Targets met by reclassifying urgency
Treating someone 59 minutes in A&E corridor equals target met
Patients removed from lists to hit numbers
Economic Bollocks.
GDP growth not reaching people’s pockets
“Inflation falling” whilst prices remain higher, just rising slower
Average wages hiding inequality through mean versus median
Gig economy workers rebranded as “self-employed entrepreneurs”
Category 3: Institutional Bullshit (Structural Lies).
The Accountability Mirage.
Independent inquiries staffed by the establishment
“Lessons learned” reports change nothing
Internal investigations follow predictable patterns: we investigated ourselves, we’re fine
Regulators staffed by former industry executives
Consultations happen after decisions are made
Impact assessments written after implementation
The Transparency Con.
FOI requests redacted to meaninglessness
“Commercial sensitivity” hiding public interest information
Published data in unusable formats
Meeting minutes recording nothing
Twenty-year disclosure rules for anything embarrassing
The Meritocracy Myth.
Oxbridge pipeline to power remains unbroken
Unpaid internships function as class filters
“Networking opportunities” means nepotism
“Culture fit” means looking like us
Skills gap narrative means we won’t train, you pay for it
Category 4: Neoliberal Bullshit (The Ideological Con).
Market Solutions to Everything.
Private sector efficiency remains unproven
Competition supposedly improves services whilst creating duplication and waste
Trickle-down economics never trickled
“Wealth creators” extract wealth
Public-private partnerships privatise profits, socialise losses
Outsourcing launders accountability
Individualism as Ideology.
Personal responsibility blames individuals for systemic problems
Aspiration means wanting things you’ll never afford
Social mobility relies on survivorship bias as policy
Bootstraps mentality ignores those born wearing boots
Self-care means you fix what we broke
Resilience training teaches you to absorb more abuse
Financialisation.
Shareholder value mandates greed legally
Quarterly earnings encourage short-term pillaging
Market confidence treats rich people’s feelings as economic indicators
Your pension gambles on their competence
Category 5: Green Bullshit (Ecocapitalism).
Corporate Environmentalism.
Carbon offsetting lets companies pay to keep polluting
Net zero by 2050 means after I’m dead, not my problem
Sustainable growth remains an oxymoron
Personal carbon footprint invented by BP to shift blame
Greenwashing packages lies in earth tones
Consumer-Focused Climate Theatre.
Reusable straws appear whilst factories burn coal
Ethical consumption proves impossible under capitalism
Recycling theatre hides that most goes to landfill anyway
Plant-based everything represents corporations cashing in
Category 6: Identity Politics Bullshit (Progressive Neoliberalism).
Representation Theatre.
More diverse boardrooms deliver oppression with better optics
First [identity] to [position] celebrates tokenism as progress
Visibility doesn’t pay rent
Allyship becomes performance without action
Inclusive capitalism offers friendly exploitation
Rainbow capitalism means Pride sponsorship by arms dealers
Language Policing Without Material Change.
Correct terminology proliferates whilst conditions worsen
Awareness campaigns substitute for action
Unconscious bias training becomes racism administration exercise
Safe spaces exist within unsafe systems
Microaggression focus ignores macroaggressions
Category 7: Democracy Bullshit (The Participation Myth).
Electoral Theatre.
First-past-the-post enables minority rule
Voter ID suppresses participation
Consultation exercises tick boxes
Representative democracy represents donors
Manifesto commitments become suggestions
“Will of the people” describes 52% on one day
Media Democracy Illusions.
Balanced coverage creates false equivalence
“Both sides” applies when one side is lying
Impartiality masks establishment bias as neutrality
Fourth estate gets owned by billionaires
Free press means free from accountability
Category 8: Charity-Industrial Complex Bullshit.
Philanthropy as Power.
“Giving back” means keeping most of it
Charitable foundations facilitate tax avoidance with good PR
Social enterprise means capitalism cosplaying
Effective altruism reboots eugenics
“Philanthropist” describes billionaires with PR teams
Charity Replacing State Function.
Food banks became infrastructure
People crowdfund medical treatment
Volunteers do government’s job
Gift Aid means taxpayers subsidise charity’s work covering state failure
Category 9: Housing Bullshit (The Extraction Model).
Property Market Mythology.
Housing ladder resembles snakes and ladders, mostly snakes
Buy-to-let investment legitimises scalping as business model
Housing shortage describes distribution problem as supply issue
Affordable housing means 80% market rent
Starter homes cost £300,000+ in London
Property-owning democracy describes landlord-tenant feudalism
Planning System Theatre.
Developer contributions are bribes
Section 106 agreements contain negotiable obligations
Affordable housing quotas get negotiated to nothing
Viability assessments use creative accounting to avoid obligations
Community consultation gets ignored
Category 10: Education Bullshit (Human Capital Factory).
Marketisation Language.
Students become education consumers
Student choice means debt-financed market participation
Graduate premium justifies debt
Skills gap means employers won’t train
Employability reduces education to job preparation
League tables encourage gaming the system
Academy chains privatise by stealth
Exam & Assessment Bollocks.
Rigorous standards involve moving goalposts
Grade inflation suggests more clever people means easier exams
Ofsted ratings deliver snapshot judgement with lasting damage
Category 11: Mental Health Bullshit (Medicalising Misery).
Therapeutic State Language.
Mental health crisis medicalises social problems
Resilience means absorb more pressure
Wellbeing initiatives offer yoga instead of wages
Mindfulness teaches individual coping for systemic problems
Talking therapies provide six sessions to fix capitalism’s damage
Mental health awareness creates visibility without resources
Self-care means you fix what we broke
Diagnostic Expansion.
Normal responses get pathologised, grief becomes disorder
Chemical imbalance myth was never proven
Diagnosis becomes identity and marketing strategy
Mental health apps present tech solutions to social problems
Category 12: Brexit Bullshit (The Gift That Keeps Giving).
Leave Campaign’s Greatest Hits.
Take back control, to whom?
£350 million for NHS lived on a bus as lies
Global Britain channelled empire nostalgia
Sovereignty offered abstract concepts versus material loss
Red tape cutting targeted workers’ rights
Project Fear accurately predicted outcomes then got blamed
Implementation Theatre.
Oven-ready deal was frozen disaster
Frictionless trade produced friction everywhere
Brexit dividend remains missing
Brexit opportunities require a Minister for copium
Category 13: Policing & Justice Bullshit.
Tough on Crime Theatre.
Zero tolerance enables selective enforcement
Preventative policing means harassment
Community policing becomes PR exercise
Intelligence-led policing means profiling
Visible presence involves standing around
Justice System Lies.
Rehabilitation adds labels to punishment
Short sentences don’t work, neither do long ones
Prison works at what exactly?
Offender management warehouses people
Restorative justice makes victims do the work
Category 14: Council & Local Government Bullshit.
Consultation Bullshit.
Community engagement precedes predetermined decisions
Listening exercises perform therapy
Co-production extracts free labour
Stakeholder workshops fill rooms with stakeholders holding no stakes
Public meetings control environments
Service Delivery Lies.
Doing more with less means doing less with less
Innovative solutions mean cuts
Service transformation means cuts with consultants
Digital-first excludes the digitally excluded
Customer service treats you as supplicant, not customer
Bristol-Specific Examples.
One City Plan everyone ignores
Liveable neighbourhoods for some
Tackling homelessness through photo opportunities
Listening administration that can’t hear
The Meta-Bullshit (Bullshit About Bullshit).
“Populism” means poor people having opinions
“Echo chamber” describes other people’s information bubbles
“Post-truth” claims lying is new when it’s just more visible
“Fake news” dismisses inconvenient truth
“Culture war” distracts from class war
“Cancel culture” means consequences
“Virtue signalling” attacks others for having values
“Woke” suggests awareness is bad
“Political correctness” means not being horrible
“Free speech” demands consequences-free speech
“Both sides” creates false equivalence
“Do your own research” means YouTube and vibes
“Common sense” packages prejudices nicely
“Silent majority” describes loud minority
The Ultimate Bullshit: “There Is No Alternative.”
So that’s it. A year’s worth of bullshit, catalogued and categorised. Fourteen major categories, countless subcategories, all demonstrating the same basic truth: the biggest bullshit of all claims this is inevitable, natural, the only way to organise society.
Every item in this taxonomy exists because maintaining it benefits someone. The bullshit isn’t accidental—it’s structural. It’s not miscommunication—it’s deliberately constructed to obscure reality whilst sounding entirely reasonable.
Neoliberalism’s greatest trick was convincing people that noticing the bullshit makes you cynical rather than observant.
But you’re not cynical for recognising patterns. You’re paying attention.
And now you’ve got the taxonomy. Use it wisely.
No lessons will be learned. But at least you’ll know why.
The Almighty Gob is a blogger and satirical commentator specialising in Bristol City Council accountability and UK institutional dysfunction analysis. He operates thealmightygob.com and publishes on Substack, examining gaps between political rhetoric and measurable outcomes.
