Once again there are no winners in the perpetual blame-shifting merry-go-round of Melbourne public transport. If either the government or Metro's executives are genuinely surprised at the system's continued failure, then things are even grimmer than we thought.

But that's not the only worry, if truth really matters. Mr Brumby's blaming of the operator of the day for the inherent failures of the chronically neglected state-owned hardware, is nothing if not entirely predictable. But with such systemic obfuscation, the last thing we need is the kind of media hyperbole which claims that 69% of Age readers "believed Connex had run the train system better." (The Age, 11/3) As it is, the value of these unvalidated tabloid-style "polls" is doubtful, and certainly not this paper's finest contribution to public discourse. But a negative answer to the question "is Metro running a better rail system than Connex?" (Poll, 9/3) does not yield the above conclusion.

Whether a failure of basic logic, or just plain sloppy, please spare us such "insight". Just two certainties remain: The travelling public are being played for mugs again, and truth is the casualty.