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For all of his self-deprecating jokes and comical comebacks on social media, James Blunt is convinced we’d all be happier if it just vanished. Although he is widely adored for his hilarious Twitter take-downs and witty zingers, the singer-songwriter reckons the online world has fooled us all into thinking that life isn’t as wonderful as it actually is.

“I’ve been on five world tours, I’ve played to thousands of people and they pay good money and they’re so positive and excited. They sing along to songs that mean something to me because they connected with them in some respect in their own lives,” he says.

“It’s such an incredibly positive feeling and they are people from all walks of life, all corners of the world, strangers standing shoulder to shoulder in a way that a politician could only dream of.

“Yet I’m always asked, ‘Hey, how are you dealing with all this negativity?’. And I go, ‘What negativity?’. It’s all only online and online isn’t real.

“The real world out there is really positive. The online world seems to be quite negative.

“We should all just chuck our smartphones out of the window and look each other in the eye and we’d probably have a much happier experience of life.”

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That’s not to say he doesn’t see the benefits of the online world from time to time.

“I use it occasionally, take the p*** out of myself and then go back to doing something normal and real,” the sing- er says.

Making fun of himself has become one of troubadour Blunt’s favoured forms of self-expression, using Twitter to communicate who he really is to his fans — and his haters — having initially taken a bit of a beating earlier in his music career.

Following his years in the Household Cavalry, Blunt’s chart-topping debut album Back To Bedlam in 2004 was a fan favourite and included the popular hits

You’re Beautiful and