"Richard is an anguished man, who grieves and misses something in his life."

I believe, josepp, that this is an overly dramatic interpretation of the situation. A more likely explanation is that Mr Bridge is a member of the British Labour Party. This was once a proud Left Wing organisation which could truly be said to represent ordinary British people. Rank-and-file members of this party still cling to the belief that it still is such an organisation (with increasingly fanatical fervour). Meanwhile their party has drifted further and further to the Right and become more and more authoritarian; there is no-one more self-righteous than a British Labour Party member (this applies both to the rank-and-file and to the leadership).

In 1997, after many years of Tory misrule, the Labour Party won a landslide victory under Tony Blair. We then had 13 years of Labour rule - first under Blair, then under Brown. Did the Labour Party in power do anything significant to reverse the ruinous changes wrought by previous Tory administrations? No, they didn't, but continued the rightward drift and tacked on lots of silly 'social engineering'. The present administration is just more of the same but a bit more vicious with some slightly less silly social engineering.

Do Labour Party members ever listen to anyone or accept any criticism? No - just as Mr Bridge won't take this seriously and will probably not even respond to it. He's right, he thinks he's absolutely and unassailably right and he will continue to ram his anti-Tory message down our throats whether by doing so he achieves anything or not.