I think key to getting a job in academia is understanding how it works. It sounds from your posts that this wasn't conveyed very well to you during your PhD. You might therefore find the guidance here helpful:
http://www.academiccareer.manchester.ac.uk/
Most PhDs do not get academic jobs, so I think you need to make a decision about how much you personally are prepared and able to invest in an academic job search and for how long. And if the answer is nothing then that is completely fine. I can only say that my PhD colleagues who didn't go into academia are doing much better financially than me! If you want to have a go though, then you need teaching experience. Send your cv to every geography department in London or near to where you are currently based - there might be some hourly paid work available in semester 2. Also ask your supervisor to be very honest about how competitive you are likely to be. It might help decision-making.
What else do PhDs do? http://www.vitae.ac.uk/policy-practice/14769/What-Do-PhDs-Do.html and other resources on that site might help. Also google alt-academic and you'll find a number of websites. Talk to a careers advisor at your university about how to sell your skills - many have special advisors for PhD students / graduates.

Sam it depends very much on how competitive the journal is. Top journals in my social science field routinely insist on two rounds of R&R and then still reject. On the other hand with less competitive journals this is rare.

I'd agree with everyone else but with one caveat in case it helps anyone in future - apparently it is the norm to send such an email in the US. That said I very much doubt it would be an important consideration in a decision.

Athlete if you are fairly sure that you did back this up then might it be worth seeking IT help to see if an expert could find / recover the files? If not, then I would tell your supervisor and see what they suggest especially if it was a study that needed ethics approval.

Lewis, can I clarify something? Was the concrete example of plagiarism published anywhere e.g. in a paper database or proceedings? And is/was the person they stole the work from a member of your department or from elsewhere? And when you say plagiarism do you mean a small portion of the work was cut and pasted or that most of / the entire paper was about research that your colleague had not carried out? Can you provide unimpeachable evidence or is this hearsay?
If for example you have a copy of the conference paper and the original paper and the overlap is substantial, then I'd be more inclined to pass it to your supervisor with as little comment as possible, as yes if a PhD student is engaging in public and obvious plagiarism it does not reflect well on the supervisor (even worse if it's included in the thesis). At the very least, s/he would want to double check anything they co-published with this person. If on the other hand, this is hearsay, I'd stay well clear.

If that journal says 5-7000 words then that is the length your paper should be - the editor will probably desk-reject anything that doesn't fit that profile. Maybe looking for another journal that accepts short research notes would be better, rather than trying to pad out your essay to proper article length?

All the German doctoral programmes I know of, require you to have completed a Masters with the equivalent of a merit or 2:1 (ECTS grade B / German grade 2.0) to be considered for entry, so it might be difficult. I'm sure you will find somewhere in Europe that has open entry, but then there will probably be no funding. And honestly is this going to help at all with a future career? A PhD in the social sciences is not something that is particularly valued by non-academic employers, and academic employers look for impeccable academic track records for subject areas like the social sciences, which turn out way more PhDs than there are jobs.

Don't self-fund. Particularly not in a STEM subject and particularly not in N America. Take a year out, work on whatever you think are the current weaknesses in your application and reapply. As far as I know, it's a real issue in N America to either self-fund or attend a low-ranked programme and can have serious limitations on your future prospects, so really not worth rushing into if another year applying might leave you in a much better place.

I understand that you are frustrated but really you have three choices; do the work, submit a flawed paper or don't submit the paper. You are a free agent but personally, if it was me, and I couldn't make the deadline, I'd not submit it (withdraw the previous version), and just email your supervisor to say that you agree, the paper still needs work and that you'll submit it instead to the next suitable conference or whatever it is. There's no point submitting something you agree is very flawed - it will only damage you.
I actually think you have had supervision that goes above and beyond what can be expected from what you say. You really shouldn't be continuing to submit work to your supervisor that requires so much reworking. But that's my opinion. I will say though that as an academic now receiving student drafts, if the presentation is poor meaning that I am stuck redrafting paragraphs to ensure that they are understandable, then yes I might miss bigger picture flaws, because my critical eye has been distracted by the need to copy edit. Academics aren't omniscient - they have moments of distraction and miss things. It sounds like you have an incredibly conscientious supervisor, so I really wouldn't rock the boat by complaining about this. Many PhD students would kill to have that kind of supervisor.

Nick' s advice is spot on. I would also suggest doing a search for alt-ac careers. One site that is good if US-focussed is Versatile PhD. It might give you a few ideas about how you might use your PhD training in other fields. If you are really uncertain, could you defer for a year? That might give you chance to think it through without time pressure (although I appreciate this isn't usually possible with funded PhDs).

Marasp it might be well be something easily sorted out. Don't panic! And don't go looking on the internet or you will self-diagnose with all manner of unpleasant things (yes been there done that...).

Definitely go to your GP and do what they say! You're right to say the long hours culture in academia filters down to PhD students and it's not healthy for anyone. But if your body is sending out this type of warning then you need to listen. A doctor's note will get you an extension, I'm sure. And you might find being forbidden to work by a doctor liberates you from the guilt as it's not your decision.

If you've failed because of academic dishonesty, don't try and transfer the credits or resubmit the failed work elsewhere - they will want a reference from your current university and the referee will be obliged to explain why you were thrown out or turnitin will find you out. I suspect this is why the tutor was livid.
If you failed because your work was poor, I'd ask why you think it would be easier through distance learning, where you have limited contact to tutors? If anything, that's the harder route. Perhaps it would be better to accept that whatever this course is, it's not your strength and find another path?

Publish, publish, publish, but strategically. It's not the numbers of publications but where they are placed. Try to get hold of your institution's ranking of journals in your field to plan. You'll need publications to get a lectureship. Some teaching experience is very valuable but I'd leave the PGCert HE for now, unless your place offers it as a series of modules, in which case I'd suggest doing the one that focuses on getting your teaching observed (being able to cite peer observations and teaching evaluation scores in any lectureship application letters is helpful). If you can get one module done with relatively little pain, then it shows you're interested in teaching well, and often (always?) it's transferable to another institution to finish up because of the HEA recognition process.

Honestly, I don't think the career prospects for Popular Culture are great. Conflict Studies might open more doors but I'd only do it somewhere like King's College London or Bradford, both of which are really known for this subject. In general, I think it's only a good idea to do a masters degree if you know what you want to get out of the course, and are convinced it would take you a step closer. A Masters degree does not lead to an academic career - you need to do a PhD. Nor if you want to work for the EU, would Conflict Studies be an obvious choice. So I'd suggest taking a step back, deciding your career goals first and then looking at Masters degrees. If you want to go the Conflict Studies route, getting some relevant work experience first would help you make the most of the degree. If you want to work for the EU, make sure you have the relevant language skills and look at a EU Studies MA. It would be very hard to get through the application process if you don't have in depth knowledge of the EU.
Finally if you want to do a PhD, you need to decide what the topic would be and then look at where has funding for PhD students in that area. You might want to do an MA that places you more definitely in one discipline or take a research methods training Masters. To get research council funding in either the humanities (AHRC) or social sciences (ESRC) you have to have a very strong application. Basically, I wouldn't rush into doing a MA, do your research and think it all through. You need a clear plan to make the investment worthwhile.