Barbara Gunnell: We are a disgrace and in such an ostentatious, couldn't-give-a-toss way. It's not just the drunkenness and flagrant disregard of decency in the main streets of Mediterranean resorts. My personal cringe is fathers bellowing running interdictions at the every move of their inventively named children. Give it back, Heligan! Not now, Dandelion! Something convinces the British, against all the evidence, that they are loved and respected worldwide. Advice to the ashamed. Travel incognito. Dress like a Belgian (Hercule Poirot?) or an Italian (Carla Bruni?). Don't say a word. Smile. And tip.

• Barbara Gunnell is a writer and editor

Mary Warnock: I suspect that the British, or at least the English, unless they were aristocrats on the Grand Tour, always behaved brutishly abroad. Pepys remarked of the Dutch: "They hate the French, as we all do." But it hasn't been only the French. Uneducated Brits pride themselves on hating abroad and all who come therefrom. But it's worse now… because drunkenness is a national sport, because men often travel without women (though they're only marginally nicer) and because children are not taught manners. They are taught self-esteem, but not consideration for others. I despair.

• Mary Warnock is a philosopher and crossbench peer

Diane Abbott: I can truthfully say that I have never seen the famously badly behaved British tourist. But that may be because I do not go on holidays where badly behaved British people go. Never having seen one and never having been one (to my knowledge), I can only speculate about the poor behaviour. It probably has a lot to do with drink. The British have been notorious and rowdy drinkers for centuries. And quite possibly our colonial history leaves some of us still thinking that we can behave how we like when among "lesser breeds without the law", as Kipling put it.

• Diane Abbott is MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington

Lauren O'Hara Photograph: Other

Lauren O'Hara: It's not surprising, when we work some of the longest hours in Europe and have been stuck on the M25 or the 6.20 to Waterloo, that in our two weeks of freedom, whether it be glugging chianti or slurping sangria, we go for it. It helps us remain sane for the rest of the year. As for the messiest visitors, do they mean leaving towels on the floor, lager cans on the beach or fag ends in the street? In which case, they should have been at a Primal Scream concert in Athens. If you want mess, the Mediterraneans can definitely give us a run for our money.

• Lauren O'Hara lives in Athens and writes for the Cyprus Mail