As I see it when assessing the risk of listeria there are 2 issues. Firstly there is the risk that the food is contaminated. Secondly you need to consider whether the level of listeria is at a dangerous enough level to cause illness.
All sorts of food can become contaminated and it's really hard to give advice based on food that could potentially harbour listeria.
Some foods though are a better medium for the listeria to increase. The UK advice seems to be based on avoiding those types of food, eg soft cheeses. That doesn't actually mean they are likely to be contaminated.
The guidelines aren't really about preventing individual cases of listeriosis. They are for public health purposes so need to be simple and address people's concerns. The consequence of listeria is potentially very serious so the health authorities need to give some reassurance about how to minimise risk. Giving advice along the lines of "listeria is very rare but can be found in many food types and there no way of knowing whether something is contaminated" would not achieve that. detailed advice on food hygiene, storage and cross-contamination would not be simple enough. A list of some food to avoid while highlighting others you could be wary of is a compromise.
For my own personal choices though I'm more concerned about the contamination side of things, but that's because I've looked into it and feel confident enough to make my own judgments about risk. So buying all types of cheese and pate where I know where they're from and feel confident storage etc has been careful = ok. Not buying sandwiches etc from a small cafe I'm not familiar with as I don't know how careful they are, how long things have been sitting around or if there may have been cross-contamination.