The actor Idris Elba has issued a passionate plea to young people carrying knives to stop making their communities “look stupid”.

The 46-year-old television star who grew up in Hackney, East London, posted a video online urging those tempted to stab someone to instead turn the blade on themselves “because you’re stabbing your future”.

As he called on other celebrities to speak out about “dumb stabbings,” he said there was an urgent need to “send a message out saying put the knives down”.

In the clip he posted to his millions of followers on Instagram, he said: "Knife crime is not new. I grew up in the 80s and there was knife crime back then, between blacks and white, and now it's definitely between young black men in small, tiny communities.

"And it's affecting everyone, we all look stupid. You look even more stupid, if you've got a knife, or you know someone that's got a knife, tell them to stab themselves right now, trust me.