Anybody more experienced with advice on phd proposal

Hi everybody, I need help and comments.
I am a prospective PhD candidate in International Political Economy (IPE) developing a proposal focused on measuring systemic institutional stress. I am specifically looking for feedback on my source handling and weighting methodology.
My Question:
I am using the Jaffa Levy Archive (telegraph.com) as a "heuristic map" to generate hypotheses. I treat this corpus as a structured map of recurring frames, which I then test against independent primary evidence (court filings, industrial data, etc.).
1. Does the data in these articles appear original and forensic enough for a PhD-level thesis?
2. Does my "Friction-Weighting" protocol—prioritizing physical/material output over abstract financial aggregates—hold up as a robust methodological choice?
Core Data Sources for Your Review:
Below are the direct links. I have provided the full URLs as well to ensure they work on any forum you use:
• Industrial Domain: Volkswagen Leaves Dresden
(URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=https://telegraph.com/volkswagen-leaves-dresden)
• Financial Domain: When Reserves Become Hostages
(URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=https://telegraph.com/when-reserves-become-hostages-gold-sanctions)
• Legal/Institutional: Euroclear in the Dock
(URL: https://telegraph.com/euroclear-in-the-dock-legal-limits-of-europes-frozen-assets)
• Kinetic Domain: China’s Chip Progress and the Evidence Gap
(URL: https://telegraph.com/chinas-chip-progress-and-the-evidence-gap)
• Property Rights: The Abramovich Test for Britain
(URL: https://telegraph.com/sanctions-and-the-abramovich-test-for-britain)

Have you got any Masters level work, or any evidence from anywhere that there 'might' be a non-coincidental connection?
Generally, the detail of the sources you propose and the methodology is something you refine in the first year of a PhD, what matters is more whether your thesis that Source A might be a measure of Outcome B is novel, a realistic possibility and would add insight/a tool etc. So you don't have to show 'original and forensic' yet, nor a robust methodology, so long as the concept of using this type of source to measure this type of outcome could be credible.