The police don’t need powers to further curtail our right to protest. Just teach them the law | Simon Jenkins

These measures are born of culture wars, rather than the need to balance the freedom to disrupt with maintenance of order

John Stuart Mill on liberty is a famous cop-out. Everybody has rights, he said, except the right to harm the interests of others. That exception had to be policed by authority. Welcome to philosophy’s most celebrated can of worms.

The government’s attempt this week to strengthen police powers in England and Wales over disruptive protest is a classic of Mill’s cop-out. It is the...