I second everything that has already been said......
As MissSpacey says, the class thing is definitely a bad idea to mention as there will be innumerable people from working class backgrounds who've bucked the trend (whatever trend there was in the first place).....
By your own account you underperformed at A level, undergraduate and postgraduate levels so it is worth being very honest with yourself about whether it indeed was an 'underperformance' -- or you hit the wall.
You need to set about doing the things that might get you a PhD now, but have a back up plan.

I still think there's an issue in terms of you not having taken things to their ultimate end-point.
At my University if an extension was refused when someone had dyslexia, there would have to be serious reasons (i.e. the student having shown no attempt to do any work before the extension). I know of people who had similar supervisory issues to you but were given an extension by virtue of it. So I'm a bit confundled.
Unfortunately making a show of your maturity and ability to resolve problems is part of a PhD application. If you've been kicking up a fuss at your 'home' institution referees might reflect this.....I'm intrigued as to at what point (i.e. how early on) you started to make other people aware of the issues you were facing.
I know at certain Universities (Oxford for one, at least in the department I was at) Masters students are explicitly told they will get no assistance with dissertations between June-September other than weekly problem solving meetings which aren't supposed to be about substantive things to do with the thesis.
It's also slightly concerning that you were surprised by your thesis mark. I didn't get the mark I wanted for my MA thesis but was fully aware that this was going to be the case when I submitted it.

OK only have a few minutes to write so will keep it brief:
1. You don't need to give up right away, but you need to be prepared for multiple knock-backs.
2. You need to get help with letter writing if you're struggling; you evidently managed two good degrees without it and your writing (above) is pretty cogent. Ask friends/family/anyone else you can think of to help you with proof reading.
3. It will be an uphill struggle; if you have supervisory issues (which it sounds like you did) you're expected at this stage to try and stand up and say something at the time. You didn't. This now makes you mark difficult to justify without bleating about how poor your old supervisors were to potential new supervisors. Which will be a problems.

From what I know, Universities kicked up a fuss about the fact that students could potentially apply to multiple universities for BGP awards, with the increased administrative load that this would entail and the difficulties of ranking applications when a number of candidates could effectively withdraw when offered awards, having taken funding via another University's BGP awards.
Essentially I'm unclear about the result of this. You will not be able to do the formal approval by the AHRC award in multiple places, that is for sure. I suspect that the same system as imposed before will be used, i.e. if you're found to be applying via multiple institutions you invalidate all of your applications. If not, given the obvious concerns of Universities, I think it's likely that the forms they produce will ask whether you're applying to multiple places. The whole system is a shambles really, the best I can advise is that you apply for places (and quickly, I know my Institution is imposing a deadline of 30th Jan for applications for those intended to apply for AHRC) at all of the places you'd like to study and then you're in a position to make multiple AHRC applications when the system becomes clear. Which it clearly isn't at the moment -- in fact it has the potential to become shambolic.

Crickey... how on earth do you write that much a fortnight?!!!!
My 'writing' bit is very slow, I'm generally writing about 500 words a day, so I'd spend most of my fortnight writing at that pace (without all the research :s)!!
You should be very pleased with yourself! But take a break ;)

Crickey... how on earth do you write that much a fortnight?!!!!
My 'writing' bit is very slow, I'm generally writing about 500 words a day, so I'd spend most of my fortnight writing at that pace (without all the research :s)!!
You should be very pleased with yourself! But take a break ;)

I wouldn't worry, the nature of my topic means that it's more possible than with most.......
It's a literature review, though with some original re-analysis of the data that has been made much easier by the fact that various people before me have made some extremely glaring errors!!!!
What I mean was, though I feel like my understanding of the data has multiplied, this is really specific knowledge and I feel like my broad knowledge is going rather out of the window!!!

I'm handing in my first major piece of work that I hope will become a Chapter of my thesis, and it's likely to be about 14000 words including figures and tables, but I can't help feeling that whilst it's a decent piece of work, I haven't really 'learnt' that much and could have worked harder. I'm looking forward to (though extremely daunted) about setting up a major database for my next Chapter.
So I wonder how everyone else is getting on?

Stressed - your post made me smile; feel much better thank-you!!
Just about getting back into the swing of things; thank goodness for the British Library.

I'm very jealous - both of the rested and the worked......
I worked until the 23rd, looked after hubby with flu on 24th, had flu by the 25th, roll on pretty much the rest of the break in bed until 2nd.
Now that's what I call 'wasted break'!!!

I experienced not dissimilar circumstances to you.
I 'came clean' about the 1st Masters to the Institution I was applying for the second (although informally with the course coordinator rather than splurging it on the form). Promptly got an offer, did said MA (though had difficulties on the dissertation component as I've mentioned before) but had already got funding for a PhD and am now really enjoying doing a PhD at same Institute.
A story in why to be honest perhaps?

If you post something up people will likely help.
Though very few people are likely to have time to offer a free editing service....

Maybe you picked the wrong University and the wrong set of supervisors then.
I can tell you, in my Department, there are no 'sunbathers'.
I don't doubt that academics can tend towards having poor social skills, but so can students!
At the end of the day, if they've told you your written work isn't up to standard then that's what counts. By your own hand you make clear it took you the entire duration of your funded period to collect your data, so I can't imagine it was particularly easy to judge your written work until after this point.

So far the following people have apparently got it in for you:
Sub dean
RDSO
Post-graduate student audit group
First set of supervisors
Subsequent leading supervisor and new supervisors
I have to ask: why?! Universities are divisive places. Occasionally it's possibly to annoy/be annoyed by one faction, but I've never heard of a situation where pretty much the whole university has been set against someone without them having done something wrong.
I will admit, as lots of people, to having days where it feels like that -- but it's simply not the case.
Now, you need to try and be a bit more pragmatic about your attitude to this situation if you hope to get a PhD.
Maybe try and sit down with your old supervisors with a specific list of things you want to find out:
(i) how did they expect the changes to affect your funding situation
(ii) how might you improve your academic writing
(iii) would the previous direction of your thesis have any hope of passing...
etc...
It's hard to admit that you're not always right, but necessary.
If I was the Dean at your new university I would be extremely disturbed to find the number of people you've taken issue with and probably (resultantly) not want to offer you a place. This is in part of your own making though, not some sort of academic conspiracy.

If there is anything I'm learning over time, it's to try to avoid hearsay.
She did respond in the affirmative when your suggestion worked, the advice on endnote etc... has to be assumed to have been well-intentioned (i.e. why would she waste her time/ another students time making the suggestion if she didn't think it would be helpful).
Office politics can be extremely negative and occur in all environments; I think in a lot of cases we need to start approaching our supervisors from the 'it's in there best interests that we do well' POV.