There is no-one else in unionist politics remotely like Lord Laird. The 68-year-old peer, whose favourite outfit is his kilt, has long cut a flamboyant figure at Westminster.
"You see him bounding down the corridors in some ostentatious outfit, arms outstretched to greet you, full of a wonderful new idea that five minutes later he's forgotten," a DUP colleague remarked.
"Of course I bound down corridors," retorted Lord Laird. "I try to challenge the image of the dull, dour unionist nobody wants to know. I see myself as Ulster's Braveheart leading the battle for Northern Ireland from the Lords."
This time, Lord Laird is fighting to save his own political skin. But he is no stranger to controversy or expressing forthright views.
He condemned the Irish Republic as being "rife with religious bigotry, corruption and double-crossing politicians" but added: "It's a bloody good place to get pissed. You can't come back from Dublin sober. They're highly sociable down there."
As chairman of the Ulster Scots Agency, he defended spending public funds on return taxis to Dublin. "I don't see the problem with a £250 taxi. Walking through the streets of Dublin in my kilt would have been a security risk."
His unguarded nature made him the perfect politician for a media sting. Lord Laird has one of the best records for attending and asking questions in the Lords, a place he genuinely loves. "I asked 701 questions one year – a record," he told me. "The next nearest guy was on only 259.
"I found out we owe the US $4000 billion from WWI, and I suggested fire engines would be more visible if they were yellow, not red."
He enjoys the range of characters in the upper chamber and has a blossoming friendship with crime writer, Baroness (Ruth) Rendell: "She's taken quite a shine to me. She studies me with great interest. I'll probably turn up in her next book."
As a schoolboy, he was bullied, bad at sport, and found exams difficult due to dyslexia. He grew up wanting to make a name for himself: "I daydreamed in class. I'd look out the window and see armies marching and me – the general, the centre of attention – leading them."
He was also keen to impress women: "I wanted girls. They never looked twice at me but I could make them laugh and I later discovered making women laugh is a great attribute."
But beneath the showmanship, he was highly gifted. When unemployed after the fall of Stormont – where he had been elected the youngest MP in 1970 – he set up John Laird PR which became hugely successful.
Lord Laird is a whirlwind of contradictions. He has named alleged IRA supporters in the Lords yet voted against the British government's curtailment of civil liberties post-9/11. He says he's ashamed he didn't oppose internment in Northern Ireland in 1971.
