in art, music and fashion. The United Kingdom was also looking towards the future with civilian nuclear power stations and the building of motorways. In housing ambitious targets were set and many high rise tower blocks were built. The 1960s and 1970s were a time of strife and the United Kingdom's inability to define its role in the world. It had been a founder member of NATO but had been half-hearted about the European Economic Community and when it eventually did attempt to join it was at first vetoed by France. At the same time traditional industries were failing and the country went through a series of financial crises and inflation soared to new heights. Defence spending was cut and cut again with treasured projects like TSR-2 and the construction of new aircraft carriers being scrapped as unaffordable. At the end of the 1970s a period of Conservative rule began with Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. With a foreign policy more in tune with that of the United States than its European allies, the United Kingdom re-established its special relationship with the Washington administration. Domestically, it was a period of great industrial hardship as one after another of the traditional industries was lost. Either the government refused to 'protect' them any longer, through subsidy, or they took them out of the protection of government ownership as many were de-nationalized. This programme of forced industrial change came to a head with the Miners' strike of 1984-1985. Perhaps the abiding memory of