Latest news with #Bundles
7NEWS
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
Collagen Co 28-Day Challenge is back with a bang: How a busy mum dropped 14.5kg and won an epic holiday
Easter is over and after indulging in chocolate eggs and hot cross buns, it's time to reset your health. And now is the perfect time to do so because The Collagen Co.'s much-loved 28-Day #ShakeAndGlowChallenge is officially back, and this time, one lucky winner will walk away with the ultimate prize: a $7,000 Luxury Escapes holiday. Starting May 12 and running until June 9, the challenge invites Aussies everywhere to commit to 28 days of nourishing, collagen-packed Glow Shakes — and the results could change your life. In partnership with Luxury Escapes, the person with the most impressive transformation will get the chance to bask under the sun at their dream destination. This exciting opportunity provides Aussies with the motivation to start their weight-loss journey without worrying about complicated diet plans. Grace, a busy mum and last season's winner, dropped an incredible 14.5kg in 28 days and walked away with a dream holiday valued at $7,000. ' Glow Shakes truly changed my life,' Grace explains. 'I lost 10kg in the first three weeks, felt more energised, and had people complimenting my skin!' The secret? Swapping up to two meals a day with The Collagen Co's signature Glow Shakes, specially formulated to support weight loss, skin health, energy levels, and overall well-being. Made with premium, sustainably sourced collagen, the shakes are delicious, convenient, and backed by a community of thousands who are already seeing real results. Founded on the mission to help people feel radiant, confident, and unstoppable, The Collagen Co is redefining wellness — one shake at a time. Whether your goal is weight loss, glowing skin, or simply feeling your best, this challenge is your golden ticket. You can kickstart the challenge with The Collagen Co.'s Custom Shake and Glow Bundles which retails from $252.80. These delicious shakes come in flavours such as strawberry milkshake, iced coffee, vanilla and chocolate. Shoppers love not only their results but the taste and they are giving the shakes a 4.9-star rating on The Collagen Co.'s website. The Collagen Co. provides itself on its commitment to providing premium, sustainably sourced collagen products that are both effective and enjoyable to consume. The brand's Glow Shakes are formulated with hydrolysed collagen, delivering benefits that go far beyond weight loss. These shakes not only support healthy skin but also help to improve joint, hair, and nail health, making them a true all-in-one solution for anyone looking to feel their best.
The Guardian
16-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Cuts to welfare. Cuts to international aid. Has Labour lurched too far to the right?
All the talk is about benefit cuts at Yum, a community pantry in Armley, one of the poorest parts of Leeds. It's in the heart of Rachel Reeves's constituency and the chancellor said three years ago that food banks such as Yum and clothing exchanges such as Bundles, both run by the Armley Action Team, were proof that rising poverty during the cost of living crisis meant that benefits should rise. Now, however, Reeves is planning to cut them, including money for disabled people. People coming to Yum to get a free 'milk, bread and spread' package and other essentials are understandably worried. Two friends, Wendy Halliday and Jacqueline Parker, have dropped in – both healthcare assistants who worked at the same nursing home and were forced to give up work after 30 years through ill health. Parker, 65, has fibromyalgia, 'like having cramp all over your body 24 hours a day', while Halliday is 63 and has a bad back from years of lifting elderly patients without the help of a hoist. She used to walk miles on the moors; now she needs a taxi to get to the food bank. Both get personal independence payments (Pip), a disability benefit in the sights of ministers who want to slash the welfare bill by £5bn. 'Pip to me has been a godsend,' Halliday says. 'It gets me out. If you're stuck in the house, depression kicks in. It affects your mental health.' Before Pip, she was living on £300 a month, with £200 going on fuel bills, leaving a mere £100 a month to cover her council tax, water bill, and shopping. Now she gets an extra £72 a week. It's not clear if Halliday will lose that – the government will publish more details in a green paper pencilled in for Tuesday. Reeves said last week that welfare needed to be reformed to 'get people into work so that more people can fulfil their potential'. But neither Halliday nor Parker say they are in a position to find a job. 'We didn't want to stop work. We've been forced into it,' Halliday says. She can't stand or sit for too long because of her back and she is only three years from state pension age. Parker is a year away from retirement and feels vulnerable because she takes warfarin, a blood thinner, which means a simple cut could turn into an emergency. 'I just want to be normal and go out,' Parker says. 'I won't go on my own because I'm frightened of having a fall and being left on floor.' Some 200 miles away, at Westminster, the everyday concerns of people like Wendy and Jacqueline are very much on the minds of Labour MPs this weekend – so much so that they are threatening to trigger a full-blown party crisis for Keir Starmer and Reeves as they look to curtail the soaring benefits bill. The government's aim, ministers say, is not just to save money. They are also, they insist, driven by a 'moral' case – to encourage as many people as possible off state assistance and into work. But many Labour MPs cannot believe what is being announced as policy in the name of their party. Some talk of 'cruelty', others of ministers 'betraying Labour principles and the most vulnerable.' Many fear that in its desperation to raise money – and being somewhat bedazzled by the pace of disruptive change in the US, which makes Starmer's efforts look dull by comparison – the party is moving alarmingly far to the right to find answers. Last Wednesday, as he was approaching the Houses of Parliament for a meeting, a senior Labour figure who has worked at high levels inside the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, described what Keir Starmer's administration was doing as 'awful' and lacking in any Labour 'values'. He went on to describe Starmer as 'a passenger in his own government', meaning that he seemed to have been captured by rightwingers in Downing Street who were now running the domestic agenda. While this senior figure – and others high up in the party – admit the benefits system badly needs reform, his view was that these plans seemed to have been foisted on the country, and the most needy, in a great rush. Vulnerable people, he feared, were being targeted because Reeves had 'boxed herself in with her fiscal rules and promises not to raise taxes'. At cabinet last Tuesday, several ministers raised their concerns, Ed Miliband and Angela Rayner among them. Since Keir Starmer visited Donald Trump in the White House just over a fortnight ago, his poll ratings have been rising steadily. On that front, he is doing well politically. The PM's handling of the Ukraine crisis has been applauded across the House of Commons. But the paradox is that within the Labour party itself, and certainly among its MPs and peers in the Lords, there is more unrest, more anxiety, about the direction of travel at home than at any time since the general election last July. A few weeks ago it was difficult to find Labour parliamentarians, other than on the hard left, who were willing to seriously differ with Starmer, even in private. Now it is difficult to avoid them. The prime minister's decision to increase defence spending as Trump threatened to leave Europe to defend itself against Russia met with little dissent. But what has caused disquiet on a grand scale has been the succession of measures announced or floated since then to pay for it, and, more broadly, put the public finances back in order before Reeves's spring statement later this month. One senior MP told the Observer: 'Over recent weeks, I have begun to wonder: what is left? What is left of what we campaigned on less than nine months ago?' The list of measures dropped, compromised or abandoned grows all the time. Only weeks ago, Labour MPs were stunned by a decision to water down the party's central green mission by approving a third runway at Heathrow – a plan suddenly taken off the shelf and re-sold by Reeves as essential to promoting economic growth. Then, in tandem with the move to raise defence spending, came an announcement that the overseas aid budget would be slashed to 0.3% of GDP to pay for the extra cost of defence – a move which triggered the resignation of Starmer loyalist Anneliese Dodds and protests from dozens of Labour colleagues. As talk of huge pending welfare cuts caused acute unease on the Labour backbenches, Starmer and his health secretary, Wes Streeting, then came forward with plans to axe 10,000 jobs in the NHS with the closure of NHS England. Among those who will be at the heart of Streeting's changes to the new-look NHS will be a former health secretary under Blair, Alan Milburn – installed on the Department of Health and Social Care board despite concerns about conflicts of interest, given his links to the private health sector – and Paul Corrigan, a former health adviser to Blair and Milburn. Speaking at a meeting of Labour MPs last Monday night about his plans to cut the benefits bill, Starmer said: 'We've found ourselves in a worst-of-all-worlds situation – with the wrong incentives discouraging people from working, the taxpayer funding a spiralling bill. 'A wasted generation, one in eight young people not in education, employment or training, and the people who really need that safety net still not always getting the dignity they deserve. 'That's unsustainable, it's indefensible, and it is unfair: people feel that in their bones.' Plenty of new-intake Labour MPs declare themselves happy with what Starmer is proposing. They are the handpicked ones, the new Starmer generation. But strains with the old-guard soft left are emerging. On his Political Currency podcast with George Osborne, the former Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls, who is married to the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, took issue with the current Labour government. 'It's one thing to say the economy is not doing well and we've got a fiscal challenge, but the context we're now in is that we are having to increase defence spending and, two weeks ago, it was announced we're going to cut international aid. But cutting the benefits of the most vulnerable in our society, who can't work, to pay for that is not going to work. And it's not a Labour thing to do … It's not what they're for.' Nor, in the view of Robert Ford, professor of political science at Manchester University, will it work politically, with local elections just weeks away. 'On welfare, Labour have an understandable desire to be seen as credible and taking tough decisions, but they are perhaps underestimating the risks of being perceived as cruel or heartless. 'For example, the winter fuel allowance cut ended up dominating discussion of Labour in a way that wasn't helpful – it did not make Labour look more credible, but did make them look heartless, even though the sums involved were small, and more than offset by triple-lock pension rises. 'To end up being seen by many voters as indifferent to the fate of impoverished pensioners when your actual policy choices leave impoverished pensioners all better off is a serious communications failure. And this was not an accident but a product of the choices Labour chose to focus on.' Ford added that Labour's approach to welfare came with electoral risks. 'Labour are understandably concerned about the rise of Reform in the polls, but in a fragmented political context this is not the only credible electoral competition they face, while for many MPs the most credible local threat comes on the left flank. Scottish Labour MPs face competition from the SNP, while in many city centre seats the Greens are Labour's strongest opponent.' Any move to freeze or change the Pip payment regime for disabled people would require legislation, which has increased the concerns inside Downing Street. Even Starmer and Reeves are now, in the words of one Labour peer, 'very worried' – 'I know because I have spoken to both of them.' Labour whips are already trying to limit a rebellion that they fear could get out of control. On Saturday, there were rumours that ministers were so concerned about the backlash that they might pull key elements of the benefits plans. Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, said: 'Labour really does need to set out what the narrative is. I never thought that the Labour party was supposed to be about making life more difficult for the most vulnerable in society. Many of my constituents are very, very worried.' Another reason – apart from sheer accusations of cruelty – why campaigners and Labour MPs object to cutting disability benefits and Pip is that research shows cutting benefits does not encourage people into work – it just makes them poorer. A report last week by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research found that the UK now has some of the least generous welfare spending of any developed country, standing in the bottom third of the 38 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for welfare payments as a percentage of average wages. Anna Stevenson, a benefits expert at Turn2us, a disability charity, said: 'Pip allows people to work. It helps them get to their jobs. People are using Pip to fill gaps in social care, gaps in health services. They're using it to cover the additional costs of living with disability. When you push households further and further into crisis, that creates more demand for urgent frontline services because there isn't other help available to them.' Back at Yum in Leeds, Wendy Halliday agrees. 'It's ridiculously hard to apply for benefits. I'd like [Reeves] to make it easier for people.' Her good friend Jacqueline Parker says Reeves helped her get housed when she was made homeless several years ago. 'She's been good for me in the past. I hope she doesn't mess up.'
