How many British people are stranded abroad by the Icelandic eruption? Anywhere between 150,000 and a million, depending on which paper you read.

This morning’s Guardian quotes figures of 400,000 on page one,  and 200,000 on page two. The 400,000 figure is attributed in a blog by the paper’s transport correspondent to government sources, who say it may have fallen as many people have used their ingenuity to get home.

The Times (yesterday) says it’s 150,000. Today’s Daily Mail agrees on 150,000 in its headline but publishes a graphic that claims a million – 750,000 in Western Europe and 250,000 elsewhere in the world.
 
The Daily Express also goes for a million, attributing this estimate to the Association of British Travel Agents. It further quotes the Civil Aviation Authority as saying that the numbers will rise by 250,000 a day for every day the airports remain closed, presumably as a result of tourists who left the UK before the eruption, have come to the end of their holidays, and now can’t get back.
 
So it’s anywhere between 150,000 and a million, and it’s either falling (the Government) or rising (the CAA). Truth is, nobody knows.