At 1:09 am, Cambridge Lib Dems announced on Twitter that they had selected their PPC. The selection meeting hadn’t gone on until then but possibly the post-meeting celebrations did.

Congratulations to Rod Cantrill, who is already well known to Cambridge voters.

Congratulations to @rodcantrill who has just been selected by #Cambridge #LibDem members to be our next Parliamentary Candidate.
Rod won the majority of votes in Cambs 2016 Mayoral vote amongst Cambridge City & South Cambs voters and we hope to carry that success onwards! pic.twitter.com/fL1NRXEzdZ

— Cambridge Lib Dems (@CambridgeLDs) January 7, 2018

Rod himself said:

Honoured to have been selected as Lib Dem PPC for Cambridge against v strong competition #LibDemFightback

— Rod Cantrill (@rodcantrill) January 7, 2018

He tells us on his website about his political priorities. Obviously he’s against Brexit, but here’s the section on tackling social inequality:

This is at the heart of Rod’s lifelong values. For Rod this means working together to ensure that everyone has access to a decent home, to high quality life long education, to a real living wage and to first class health and social care services.

As a trustee of Wintercomfort for the Homeless locally and through his work for Shelter nationally, Rod is committed to ensuring that everyone in our society has a home. Rod has a track record of bringing forward creative solutions, such as a local living rent (where affordable housing is offered on the basis of 30% of a household income not on distorted market rents) so that young people and families can afford to live in Cambridge. As our Parliamentary candidate, he will work to guarantee that everyone has access to decent housing.

Young people tell Rod that with the world of work changing dramatically, they want an education system that equips them for life. He has been a strong voice for fairer funding for our local schools. As our mayoral candidate, Rod called for greater investment in apprenticeships locally, so that teenagers have the skills they and businesses need.

Today, many people are struggling to make ends meet, they have not seen a pay increase for a number of years but where their cost of living, particularly food and energy bills has seen a big increase. Rod believes that everyone deserves to get a fair wage for the work they do. He is a supporter of the Living Wage Foundation and was responsible for the introduction of the Real Living Wage to Cambridge City Council some five years ago. Rod continues to campaign for Cambridge to be a Real Living Wage city.

Cambridge is world leading in health and life sciences. Yet, due to chronic under funding, waiting times are growing for many services and our health and care professionals are under severe and unfair pressure. Rod is committed to fighting for proper funding for our local health service.