I don't know the vocabulary, but I find the emphasis on background depressing. Yes I can see the advantage of having walked the walk, but not if someone has not gained insight and critical thinking in the process. Jess may have experience of DV or whatever but that does not necessarily have made her an expert, or mean she is any better at formulating good policy.
Ditto she may have sat on Maria Miller's committee and heard all sorts of experts. But does she have the critical skills or curiousity to look further than what is dished up in front of her? Does she have the ability to question party policy or Civil Servants to the extent that they work hard to provide good argument rather than simply reheat what they have heard from lobbyists.
Northern working class voters seem to have decided that regardless of background, Boris is more likely to listen to them and to act in their interests. The jury is very much out on whether they made the right decision. His advisors, like Cummins, have clearly listened to what people are saying. Whether they act, is a different matter. However the fact that Labour lost so many key seats is a massive indictment of their leadership, and perhaps of their method of choosing leaders.
Real political skills presumably include an ability to listen and to reflect. Not simply parrot the PC du jour. Intelligence, critical thinking, empathy, and humanity surely need to be more important than background.
(If it were me choosing, I would like to see Yvette Cooper. But it is no longer that sort of Labour party.)