The Dot-to-Dot That Doesn't Connect: How Bristol's Crises Reveal Britain's Institutional Collapse.
A Bristol perspective on national dysfunction - November 2025.
Remember dot-to-dot puzzles? Connect the numbered dots, and a picture emerges. A ship. A dinosaur. Something that makes sense.
Bristol in November 2025 is a dot-to-dot where you follow every instruction perfectly, draw every line, but when you step back, there’s no coherent picture. Just lines going in directions that don’t quite connect.
You’re left tilting your head trying to work out what you’re supposed to be seeing.
Let me show you the dots. What they mean is up to you to figure out. But once you see them, you can’t unsee them.
By the time you finish reading this, there’ll probably be another dot. That’s how this works. The picture never finishes. But the pattern holds.
Dot 1: The BBC.
Britain’s “impartial” broadcaster just got caught with documented institutional bias. The organisation lecturing everyone about truth was running its own agenda all along.
One more pillar of “at least we’ve still got that” turns to dust.
Dot 2: Labour’s Collapse.
Six months in with a massive majority, Starmer’s united the country. United them in thinking he’s useless. Historically catastrophic approval ratings for a brand new government.
Bristol’s been a traditionally Labour city under a Labour government. This should be Labour’s moment, in theory, at least. Instead, we’re watching the same decline with a different colour rosette.
Dot 3: The Housing Cartel Building Bristol
Seven major housebuilders - Barratt Redrow, Bellway, Berkeley, Bloor, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey, Vistry - investigated for allegedly running a cartel. Restricting housing supply. Sharing sensitive information. Creating the conditions that price you out.
Combined annual profits: £1.7 billion.
Their punishment? £100 million (5% of one year), promises to behave, investigation dropped. No prosecutions. No findings. No admission.
Every single one is building in Bristol right now:
Barratt Redrow: Frenchay Hospital, Hanham, Yew Tree Farm
Bellway: Brislington (555 homes), Flowers Hill
Bloor: Warmley, Charfield, Coalpit Heath
Persimmon: Filton Airfield
Taylor Wimpey: Highridge, Mangotsfield, Barrow Gurney
Vistry: Multiple Bristol sites
Berkeley: Bath and wider area
The firms accused of creating the housing crisis are building the homes, supposedly solving it.
Dot 4: Operation Mechanise.
Whilst those developers paid pocket change and walked, the National Crime Agency deployed thousands of officers across Britain - including Bristol - raiding barbershops, vape shops, car washes, nail bars.
Results: 2,700+ premises raided. 924 arrests. £10 million seized. Bank accounts frozen. Six agencies descending on high street businesses.
The arithmetic:
Alleged housing cartel, £1.7bn profits, building across Bristol: Pay £100m, walk away. Zero arrests.
Barbershop selling illegal vapes: Six agencies, frozen accounts, arrested, prosecuted, possibly deported.
Two justice systems. One for boardrooms. One for clippers and cash registers.
Dot 5: Bristol’s LTNs
Bristol Council - our Green administration that’s supposed to be different - is implementing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods with no adequate public transport first. Piecemeal rollouts are pushing traffic onto other roads. Minimal consultation. No flexibility for disabled residents or carers. Zero enforcement.
A policy that could work, implemented to enrage. Then, the Council points at LTNs saying “climate action” whilst car-dependent infrastructure stays untouched.
The same Council is about to partner with alleged cartel members to build homes you can’t afford.
Dot 6: Bristol’s Flags.
Bristol City Council spends money and staff time flying flags for the benefit of self-indulgent causes at varying times.
Costs money. Generates controversy. Achieves nothing material.
Meanwhile, simultaneously:
Partnering with Vistry and Taylor Wimpey (alleged cartel members) through Goram Homes to build 1,000+ homes at Hengrove Park, Wells Road, Lockleaze, Whitchurch
Implementing designed-to-fail LTN schemes
Cutting services
Raising council tax
Presiding over decline, painted green
Flags go up. Infrastructure rots. But at least the flags look pretty.
Dot 7: Migration Theatre.
National government’s one-in-one-out migration policy. Mathematical theatre pretending complex human patterns can be managed like nightclub doors.
Promise control. Deliver chaos. Nothing changes except the performance.
The Picture.
Seven dots. Some connections are crystal clear:
Housing cartel walks (Dot 3) → barbershops raided (Dot 4). Two-tier justice. Undeniable.
Labour collapses nationally (Dot 2) → Bristol’s Green Council implements failures (Dot 5). Different parties, same performance.
BBC performs neutrality (Dot 1) → Labour performs solutions (Dot 2) → Council performs climate action (Dot 5) → Council performs caring with flags (Dot 6). Performance replacing function. The pattern.
But some dots deliberately don’t connect. Migration theatre links to the performance pattern, but how exactly does it connect to Bristol’s housing cartel partnerships? To barbershop raids? The lines get fuzzy.
That fuzziness is deliberate.
Can’t see the complete picture? Can’t point at it and say “there’s the problem”? Can only stand there squinting, wondering if you’re missing something?
You’re not missing anything. The picture doesn’t make sense because it’s not supposed to.
Keeps you confused. Divided. Arguing about which dots matter. Whether the lines you see are real or imagined.
But in Bristol, some lines are undeniable:
Companies accused of running housing cartel building Bristol’s future
Your Green Council partnering with those companies
Small businesses raided by six agencies whilst billion-pound developers walk
Climate policies implemented to fail
Flags up, infrastructure rotting, services cut
The rest? Deliberately incomplete. Enough to see something’s wrong. Not enough to know how to fix it.
What I’m Not Telling You.
When everything’s failing simultaneously—BBC, Labour, housing, justice, climate policy, local government—there isn’t one thing that fixes it.
I can’t tell you the cure. I can show you the dots Bristol’s living with. You draw your own conclusions. You do the research. You decide what it means.
What I can tell you: you’re not crazy.
What you’re seeing in Bristol - Green Council partnering with alleged cartel members to solve the crisis those members are accused of creating, policies designed to fail, flags whilst services get cut, two-tier justice where barbershops get raided whilst developers walk - that’s real.
The dots exist. Some connect. Some deliberately don’t. The picture’s incomplete by design.
Your Bristol lines to verify yourself:
Which companies are building which Bristol developments
What happened in the CMA housing investigation
Operation Mechanise results
Bristol Council’s partnerships through Goram Homes
Your councillor’s voting record on these partnerships
Where your council tax goes whilst flags go up
Some dots connect clearly. Some are left hanging. Work out why.
I’m not selling hope or solutions. I’m showing you the dots we’re living with in Bristol and why they connect to patterns across Britain. Try joining similar dots in whatever part of the country you live in, and then, if you dare, nationally.
What you do with any clarity you may achieve from this is up to you.
But at least now you know you’re not crazy for seeing it.