http://www.uhc-collective.org.uk/
is their website and it explains itself a bit more...

Maybe people should read a little of the site before they come to judgements.. there's more to uhc other than design, the indymedia masthead at the top of this page for instance...

I think their politics are PRETTY DAMN CLEAR!!

Look at their Tookit:
 http://www.uhc-collective.org.uk/knowledge/toolbox/index.htm

>>>organisation
meetings, consensus decision making, methods of organising
>>>on the offensive
tools for taking direct action
>>>survival and freedom
dealing with public order situations, legal advice, prison, burnout, New Deal
>>>PLUS: press, strategy, anarchism

So what if they want to earn some money! Most people have to, and if you want to make a project ongoing then some cash is needed.

They still do some work for free, so quit bashing anyone who doesn't work out of a squat and who get's things together!

On their site they also say:

Most design agencies proudly display names like Nike, MTV and Diesel in their client list.
These companies are only too eager to take young, innovative and energetic art and use it to flog their merchandise.

You won't find UHC working for them, this is why...

The cutting edge street cool of Nike and Addidas cleverly hides their use of cheap sweatshop labour.

The green, bright and clean image of BP disguises a company that continues to rape the planet and destroy people's lives for a raw product that drives countries to war.

Big corporations use eager designers to airbrush their blemishes and distract us from their unsavoury activities. They associate our desires and culture with their boring or dangerous products in an attempt to make us believe 'they are us'.

---snip

At UHC we want to prove that you can make an honest go of being a designer.
Even if that means a list of non-clients that reads like everyone else's dream portfolio

SEEMS PRETTY CLEAR TO ME...

But as the above poster gave the link to their website, go check it out for yourself and decide for yourself.

And don't criticise people for making their website look nicer!

Well here's a more thought out defence....

As for the divide between artists and non-artists, we run workshops specifically tagetted at activists (ie cheap at £10 for 6 week course) where we pass on our skills such as webdesign and layout, to enable other to do what we do. Maybe the author or the activists they speak of could join us if they are feeling excluded? We hope our work sets a standard to inspire others and improve the quality of what is expected from political art not to make those who can't draw feel inferior.

Maybe the author should stop talking on behalf of other 'activists' and suggesting what they think. We work for and with all sorts of 'active' people and groups working to make Manchester a better place, be that local graffiti artists, IndyMedia, a squat in Hebden Bridge, the Manchester Environmental Resource Centre, the Big Issue or a local recycling company.

I'd be interested to know what kind of activists the author is talking on behalf of and also how the author supports themselves in the valuble work they do; would it be living off the state, off an inheritance or some other source, independent of the capitalist sytem we live within?

Our work dares to suggest activism can be progressive and sustainable, if you have a viable alternative then please write to me and we can continue the debate without a need to resort to anonymity.

Thank god someone has finally mustered the courage to take a stand against UHC and the injustice and fraudulancy that characterise the so-called art project (multinational corporate murderers...real name Ultimate Holding Company).

To many Manchester activists it has not gone unoticed that besides being a greed-ridden establishment, UHC had been using medeivaland illegal practices to increase their profit margin. It all comes down to the bottom line,in UHC's land of co-optation of activist sub-cultures and self-serving crypto-activist nonsense.

UHC have too long got away with using cheap south-east asian slave labor to screen print their t-shirts and cut the perforations in the famous "fish or vegetable" campaign leaflets which UHC were paid millions by the Vegetarian Society to do. It has also escaped many doting followers of these corporate tricksters, that the "actors" that played the prisoners in their infamous camp x-ray installation in manchester were in fact forced slaves, flown specially into manchester for the week, on hire from guantanamo bay itself. Group4, some of UHC's close allies, oversay the whole farrago.

We have first hand information from a very trust worthy source, that the materials used to make their cluster bomb confetti, are not recycled, and were in fact sourced from clear cut equatorial rain forest, reportedly from sumatra in indonesia, and then drenched in a mixture of formaldehyde and other extremely vicious poisons.

UHC are infact a right-wing zionist conspiracy, and are a danger to us all. Either we act now, or we will be forever plagued, by regret at our inaction.

meet tomorrow at piccadilly gardens at 3.30 pm as we have had a tip-off that they willbe in the area at this time. bring guns, eggs, and tanks.

I totally agree with the last post.

I will definately be there in Picadilly gardens tommorow and will be tooled up myself.

No compromise!!

...but if say, UHC wanted to promote there lil' drawing club then might perhaps go on indymedia slagging themselves off, so they could then go and defend themselves and say how great they are, getting round indymedia's ban on advertising commercial enterprises. Just a thought

does commercial advertising include non-profit (which is what UHC is)?!!

Black white black white black white black grey - damn, who put that there - black white black white black white...

Criticism on Indymedia is the new form of direct action, don't you know darling, masquerading as radical politics.

In a splintered activist scene and highly personalised politics, I could understand why someone would use anonymity (it's not something resorted to, don't simply/downplay it for chrissakes!).

There's maybe interesting debate about what happens when people specialise, which the first poster alludes to, but that's not just to do with UHC, & should be seen more as a mirror to look at ourselves in.
Activists in Manchester have long been specialising in 'crowd management', 'alternative media', etc, leaving no-one doing actions...!

did whoever wrote the last post smoke any crack per-chance before writing it?

"a standard to inspire" (who inspires who?)
"whats expected" (expected by who of who?)

am bored of all this slaggin off of each other tis shite... and tis amazin that someone is so up their own arse that they deem themselves so activisier than thou to go round slaggin people off fer work that is really koolio...

its a bit like the way some activists seem to love to wear ripped trousers and look like shite... i dont get it... the uhc website is top and yep tis all shiny and gleamy.. but whats wrong with that? surely everythin doesnt have to look fuckin shite to be 'activist'... fuck that...

uhc does some top stuff and they're really inspiring and cool... they taught me how to build websites.. the one i made might not be as shiny but if would be if i was better at it... and they let me use the studio space to do all sorts of activism preparation like sortin oot stuff fer subvertising and stuff..

and besides it doesn't really matter.. at the end of the day fook off dissin people.. tis amazing that peoplea re doin stuff esp such koolio art stuff.. if people like uhc weren;t around with koolio and 'shiny' artwork and websites then loads of people wouldn't get involved with activism.. like me.. cos to be honest not everyone wants everythin to look shite and patronising...

big love... and hope everyone's havin fun whatever they're doin... yepyepyep.. everyone should do their ting and not slag each other off or fuck each other over... thats my fookin revolution..

nes.. x

the website is a bit glossy for my taste, but i don't really care one way or another.
things must be quiet in manchester at the moment.
haven't people got enough to do?
haven't we got enough enemies without fighting each other?