Imaginaire,

I think it would very much depend on the quality of your research proposal as to whether or not you were offered a place. A well-thought out proposal showing understanding of the appropriate research methodologies and theoretical frameworks, that was carefully targeted at appropriate supervisors might indeed get you a place. Where the real problem will be is funding. There is not much funding available for Politics PhDs - the main funder is the Economic and Social Research Council via its doctoral training centres in certain universities. Unfortunately because there isn't much money, it is very competitive. My university is part of a DTC and realistically you need a first at undergrad or a distinction at masters (and preferably both) to stand much chance of being chosen for funding, even with a very good proposal, and we're not one of the big name places so I hate to think what it's like at the LSE or Oxford. Self-funding is an option, although that means part-time study for most people, which can be difficult to manage, but you really have to think through the cost-benefit analysis carefully. In general, a Politics PhD doesn't offer much advantage over a masters (if at all) for anything other than academic jobs (of which there are very few), so it is questionable whether self-funding is worthwhile. I don't know what your motivation is, but it is worth considering whether a PhD is really the best route.

One of the reasons that social scientists are expected to do a Masters either before or as part of their PhD is that the candidates do design their own project. In fact you have to write a fairly developed research proposal as part of the decision on who gets funding for their PhD. You don't generally apply for a ready-designed project like in science. Yes supervisors have intellectual input, read and comment on draft chapters etc, but social science PhD students are more independent than in science. Supervisors are there as advisors but the thesis is an independent original piece of research to get the degree. It's just very different. The other thing perhaps to say is that single or two-authored journal articles are the norm. Remember there are far fewer staff and PhD students in a social science department than there are in a science one, so working in large teams isn't usually possible.

Honestly it's very different in the social sciences to physical and natural science. The custom is that you have to have made a substantive and verifiable contribution to get authorship credit. This for example is the relevant guidance for sociology;

"Attributing Authorship

Authorship should be reserved for those, and only those, who have made significant intellectual contribution to the research. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or general supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Honorary authorship is not acceptable.

1) Everyone who is listed as an author should have made a substantial direct academic contribution (i.e. intellectual responsibility and substantive work) to at least two of the four main components of a typical scientific project or paper:

a) Conception or design.
b) Data collection and processing.
c) Analysis and interpretation of the data.
d) Writing substantial sections of the paper (e.g. synthesising findings in the literature review or the findings/results section).

2) Everyone who is listed as an author should have critically reviewed successive drafts of the paper and should approve the final version.

3) Everyone who is listed as author should be able to defend the paper as a whole (although not necessarily all the technical details)."
I'd say that's standard practice in social science so the OP probably wouldn't be expected to include the supervisors.

I'm a social science academic and I would not expect a PhD student to include me as an author in these circumstances. Seriously ask them but I'd be surprised if they'd expect it.

I have no idea what the OP means by external review (some random person you paid to check it?), but normally two external examiners are required if the OP is a university employee or there's a similar reason why an internal examiner might be deemed to be prejudiced in favour or against the candidate.
I'd make a written complaint about the excessive delays to the dean of research students / graduate school / whoever centrally is responsible for overseeing the examination process. Ask for a clear timeline for a decision - they owe you that much. It would be worth looking at any handbook / regulations you have - there may be a set time period given and I'd imagine 8 months is way over that. If you can get the person in your school who is responsible for research students to complain on your behalf that might be more effective.

If you have already published under your current name, it is better / easier to retain it for professional if not personal use. It makes life more straightforward.

Firstly there are very few UK universities nowadays that do not offer opportunities for PhD students to teach in the humanities and social sciences (which are the areas where teaching experience is really expected in a recent PhD as there isn't the same postdoc structure there is in the natural sciences). The two that are generally lacking in this respect are Oxford and Cambridge because they teach in a very different way (one-to-one supervisions) to other UK universities and have more PhD students and staff so fewer opportunities. Often these are the only two universities US scholars have experienced, so the myth that British PhDs haven't had teaching experience gets perpetuated.
OP - most other good universities will offer teaching opportunities, and increasingly offer PhD students the chance to take part of the HE teaching qualification. It might not be a guaranteed teaching assistantship and it will almost certainly be dependent on the PhD student's communication skills and background knowledge (no-one is going to put someone in the classroom if they think it's not in the undergraduates' interests), but the opportunities exist for small group teaching (Lectures are less likely). It is something to ask about when applying. It matters - with £9k fees in England, the ability to teach well is a consideration for those hiring a lecturer. But you also need publications to get on the short list.
But it's like everything else during a PhD - proactive students get out there and go to conferences, start to publish, teach etc, but many will not bother and convince themselves that the PhD alone is enough or that they attend such a prestigious university that people will jump to hire them. Those who did ARE more likely to get that part-time RA job or that maternity leave teaching cover because they have better c.vs, and for most people, it's those not very well-paid and often exploitative jobs immediately post-PhD that allow them to get more publications out and then become competitive for lectureships.

I suspect what is happening here is that the OP was one of a group of students working on similar topics and finished first, but more recent results from the lab suggest that his/her results look problematic. The head of the lab probably doesn't want to publish the findings from the OP's PhD until he has a clearer sense of what is going on as more results come in. After all retracted articles look bad for all concerned. If the head of the group thinks that the OP has deliberately commited fraud in the PhD thesis, then he would have a duty to report it, as Ian suggests and that could lead to the revocation of the PhD, but I suspect it's more that he hopes the OP has just made an error somewhere and is trying to help him/her come out of it as well as s/he can. THis takes time though as experiments have to be re-run etc. It happens recently in a friend's lab and I know she thinks they've lost 6 months to a year in trying to clarify the data, but otherwise publication was just going to be too risky.
Incidentally PhDs can be revoked if substantial fraud is discovered be that in terms of fraudulent research methods / findings or plagiarism even if it is discovered well after the award. THis does happen. I know some of the regular posters on this forum give the impression that many academics and scientists in particular are corrupt and will cover everything up, but this is a very dangerous assumption to make. There have been quite a few high profile cases recently where people well on in their careers have had mutliple papers retracted, and lost their doctorates because fraud has been uncovered.

You need to clarify whether the PhD student has intellectual property rights or not. this depends a lot on how the PhD was funded and needs clarifying with the IP office at your university.

Try the 'Academics in the Middle East' forum at www.chronicle.com for information on the UAE and on individual universities. In brief, apparently working conditions, student quality and pay are very variable, and it might not be the 'get rich quick' destination for academics that it is for other professionals. Obviously you've also got to be prepared to conform to local norms - not just religious ones but also societal ones but you'll know that. I only know one person who went to work as an academic, and he's never been able to get a UK academic job. The teaching load he had was very high and his research ground to a halt making him unemployable elsewhere. He also loathed the management style there, and so chose to leave academia to return to the UK. I'm sure others have had better experiences but it's certainly not paradise.

It sounds as if your PhD was part of a larger funded project rather than a quota studentship? Is that right? If so, I'm afraid you may (or almost certainly) have signed away your rights to intellectual property in accepting the position. You need to check what your letter of appointment said and what your institution's intellectual property policy is. But in large funded projects, data very rarely belongs to the individuals doing the research, but rather to the institution employing the PI or to the funder.
In general though, if the project has to be completed within a certain time span, and your decision to take a full-time job means that this would not happen, I can't honestly say that your supervisors are being unreasonable here, particularly as they have correctly offered you authorship credit on the publications. Get advice (is there a research office or an intellectual property team at your university?), but my gut instinct is that you are in a weak position, and that you should not alienate people. Depending on whether the data belongs to the funder or the university, could you perhaps negotiate continuing with a similar project part-time that would use the data but in a different way?

Hi,

You might want to check the rules of the relevant Research Council to see if they say anything on this. For example, the ESRC seems to suggest here on p.14 of their guidance, that you would not be eligible for funding from them: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/_images/ESRC-Postgraduate-Funding-Guide-DTCs%20-%20August%202013_tcm8-28124.pdf
so different it seems from the EPSRC. I'd imagine university funding though is at the discretion of that university.

This is something that's really subject dependent. In my social sciences field on the rare occasion that there are conference proceedings, they aren't considered a 'proper' publication i.e. would be viewed as cv 'padding', whereas I know conference proceedings are quite highly regarded in computer science for example. If your field is article-led then you probably did the right thing, as there are some question marks over whether you can publish a revised version of a paper that appeared in conference proceedings later in a journal. Again it seems to be something where practice varies between subjects.

This sounds like he's trying to prepare you for a tough viva and the possibility that the examiners will want some additional work done in terms of corrections. If you have a borderline thesis, then the viva becomes really important; if you can defend well, then things can turn out better than expected. From what he's saying, you need to clarify in your own mind what the thesis' contribution to knowledge is, what your key findings are and where they fit into the wider field, so that you can articulate that clearly to the examiners. Has he told you what he thinks is missing from the thesis? If so, you could prepare a series of answers that say for example where finding x fits into the contextual literature, if it's the background materiel you have left out. If you can get someone to do a mock viva with you, then do it.
You may think he's scaring you and demotivating you to be nasty, but honestly it's when students are not told what the potential problems are, and go into the viva (sometimes too confidently) thinking everything is fine, that nasty messes tend to happen. At least you know he thinks there are weaknesses and what they are, so you have the opportunity to work out how best to defend them.

If you are funded by a RC then at some point you must have accepted the studentship. That constitutes a contract. For my RC the terms and conditions of the studentship are made very clear on their website and you accept them by accepting the studentship. But there is likely to be wording that leaves the power in their hands, to cover what has happened i.e. cuts in their overall funding. If you are funded by the university, then again I can't see how they could process payments to you without there being any similar paperwork. But once again, although I'm not a lawyer, I don't think what is in an advert has legal standing, it's whatever you signed to accept the offer.