Indeed. Akin to the idea of a "nation of shopkeepers".
As my late mother used to say if we are all keeping shop who's going to do the buying?
Simplistic stuff designed to appeal to the hard of thinking.
The "nation of shopkeepers" thing was intended as an insult.
As for Kier Starmer, he might be right, although pretty much everything people attribute to Margaret Thatcher - good or bad - turns out to be wrong, but he is the Labour leader, hoping to form the next government and he shouldn't be doing things that so obviously look bad for him.