It's one of the country's many invisible slums, not even marked on maps - but the churches dotted among the rubble represent a microcosm of the battle within the Catholic Church between liberals and arch-reactionaries for the faith of 1.1 billion people. You only have to glance at the barrio's sea of Catholokitsch to pick up on the contradictions embedded in their faith: young girls wear skimpy tops bearing the pious face of Mary as they snog the heads off their boyfriends. A six in the hall turned into a four over dinner and went to a minus over the following days It would have been better had he not spoken at all But humility of itself doesn't produce remorse. Unfortunately for our spiritual health, the unfair and unkind judgement turns out to be right Mr Davis reacted to the setback in an enduringly Tory way He fired his media handlers. More from Simon Carr. I bet that would make the front pages.ellie levenson . Frankly, the media owe David Davis; his conference performance wasn't nearly as bad as it came to be known.

Market forces - competition, as Tories lovingly call it - drove a lot of the judgement. We all need to be a bit different from our colleagues and, unfortunately with Davis, there was only one way to differ. How many people can sing the rather complex "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"? I bet it's rather more than can quote the number of children living in families with less than 60 per cent of the median income. And I also bet that if you managed to incorporate this fact into a song in a bestselling musical film, many more people would take it seriously and start voicing their concern to politicians.In the light of my conversation with the newspaper executive, here's an even better idea. The musical should star Victoria Beckham, and be launched at a screening at Beckingham Palace open only to children with anti-social behaviour orders. Instead I would pool resources and commission a musical.For, unlike most people who brand themselves as intellectuals, I have no problem with admitting the following: Andrew Lloyd Webber has given me much more enjoyment that watching highbrow plays. I have seen more musicals by Rogers and Hammerstein than I have read books by Dickens.

The Gershwins invariably make me think and I truly believe that if Stephen Sondheim says it's true then it must be.What's more, I understand the power of a catchy tune over a memorable statistic. The authors on the Booker shortlist are safe to continue writing their homages to Forster and the like.Rather we need precisely what Polanski's film is missing - songs It's not Dickens we need, but Lionel Bart. What British adult for example doesn't know all the lyrics of Bart's Oliver! off by heart, and doesn't understand the horrors of the workhouse?If I were in charge of the child poverty lobby - and I suspect at this precise moment they are rather pleased I'm not - then I would say to hell with funding another postcard campaign and forget the next survey on how much it costs to buy a school uniform. In some ways today's poor children are like the Artful Dodger, looking the part of the young gentleman but living a very different life.I worked in the child poverty lobby for six months last year. While I was there, one newspaper executive said to me that he believed the statistics and that he'd happily put child poverty on the front page to highlight the issue to his readers. That is, he'd happily do it if only I could get him 50 children looking poverty-stricken attending a party given by Posh and Becks.The trouble here of course, other than my hotline to the Beckhams being not always fully functional, is that poor children today don't necessarily look poor, and consequently don't make great pictures.