Spit it oot, Hen!

'Spit it oot, Hen!' - is a Scottish phrase, an exhortation - which has nothing to do with spitting or chickens.

In fact it means - 'get to the point' or 'for God's sake - say what you mean'.

In other words it's an everyday, colloquial and slightly old-fashioned use of language - normally said in a friendly, half-joking manner towards a woman - be that woman a spouse, a family member - or just someone in your company.

So I imagine someone must have been advising Harriet Harman to 'spit it oot' - when she was explaining Labour's position over spending cuts - because here's what she said yesterday:

"It's simply not the case that we're accepting the government's spending cuts. That couldn't be further from the truth. We think that the government's austerity spending cuts are making a bad situation worse; we think that they're too far and too fast. And actually we're fighting the cuts."

Harriet Harman went on to say that the coalition had "squeezed the life out of the economy" with its austerity drive, making a continuation of the public sector pay freeze necessary and causing unemployment to rise.

Before adding -

"Obviously we have to make sure that the deficit is brought down and that's a combination of what we do on tax, what we do on public spending, but importantly it must be the generation of growth. So we're not accepting austerity cuts; we are totally opposed to them and we are fighting them."

So that's clear then - for the moment anyway.