Margaret Thatcher said and did quite a few dumb things, and this is prominent among them.

There are no Socialist countries with anything like equality. By pretending there are (or were) we empower Socialists. Which can be an advantage tactically if you're Margaret Thatcher and prefer Socialists to more moderate opposition, but that's no reason to repeat it now.

Socialism has inequality. Socialism has bosses, cronyism and coverups. Socialism is just regular authoritarian crony-capitalism, painted up with lies, and missing the coordinating information provided by even very imperfect markets.