‘What is your biggest low-stake conspiracy on the UK?’ – 23 very inconsequential hypotheses about life in Britain

Conspiracy theories tend to be about big things like governments keeping the existence of aliens from us or the earth being flat. Big, and also silly.

But some people enjoy speculating about the possible explanations for smaller, less potentially world changing events. Which is ultimately more fun than watching hours of YouTube videos about the structural integrity of steel because you believe 9/11 was an inside job.

They’ve been sharing their favourite hypotheses on the AskUK subreddit after user Mysterious-Snow1414 asked this:

‘What is your biggest low-stake conspiracy on the UK?

‘What is something that, despite being inconsequential if your theory is true, you believe to be accurate despite common belief not reflecting that?’

And lots of people chipped in with their suspicions about the shadowy truths behind life in Great Britain, like these…

1.

‘Team Building exercises actually do work – but not through the exercise itself, but by giving you a common bond of hatred against your employer who inflicted it upon you all.’
–g0ldcd

2.

‘Turkish Barbers are not actually laundering money, they are just incredibly well run businesses and most of their clients go in after midnight when we are all asleep.’
–Bufger

3.

‘My local cat adoption place doesn’t actually want to rehome their cats, they just want money and food donations instead.

‘They love having all the cats and want to keep them for themselves, so no one will ever be good enough for them to adopt.’
–That_Organization901

4.

‘New fast food restaurants are built like Faraday cages to block 5g/mobile data, so you have to use their WiFi and they can scrape your usage data.’
–PawneeBookJockey

5.

‘Kevin McCloud has knocked up a ridiculous amount of women via Grand Designs.’
–ImperialSeal

6.

‘The reason the vegan options in Greggs taste so good and so like the meat options is because there’s no actual meat in any Greggs products. The only reason Greggs isn’t admitting to being fully vegan yet is cultural.’
–cuppateaangel

7.

‘There was a war some long time ago, totally forgotten to history, between Wales and the Nordic countries. As part of the settlement one got all the vowels and one got all the consonants.’
–Round-Bandicoot8766

8.

‘The councils have too many traffic cones and can’t store them all, so they set up road works to store the traffic cones.’
–Low-Wind-1613

9.

‘Brian Conley and Bradley Walsh are the same person.’
–rosetyler86

10.

‘Ed Sheeran. Not sure what the conspiracy is exactly but there’s something not right about him. I just know he’s getting away with murder somewhere.’
–Familiar_Benefit_776

11.

‘There’s no bins anywhere anymore cause council workers get audited on how many people they fine for littering and paid on commission for catching them.

‘Bins have been deliberately removed to entice the public into littering and therefore more fines fulfilling their sacred quota.’
–GroceryFun3203

12.

‘Since the advent of loyalty cards the large supermarkets have morphed into data collection and human behavioural science companies – the selling of groceries is secondary.

‘The vast majority of UK citizens visits a supermarket every week. The data they hold on: what you buy, how much you spend, how offers affect your decisions, advertising impact, how the weather and external events affect shopping habits – is immense. It is a microcosm of humanity and they are learning how to control us.

Shop independent.’
–RefrigeratorOk8237