If the fat is properly hot, the calories absorbed into the food from lard, suet, or olive, peanut, canola, oils are similar. No real dietary difference.
Pie crust and a number of pastries must be made from lard (or butter, not often in crust pastry in the US and Canada), otherwise the taste and consistency are wrong. I am not familiar with the British use of beef fat, or butter in pie crust, but I am sure these aliments do just as well.
The Roman, Pliny, said the use of butter distinguished them from the barbarous peoples (and the rich from the poor); those of us using lard or beef fat must be still counted among the barbarous (or poor).
The Mayo Clinic, in its recipe recommendations, now does not rate margarines over butter, and a number of cautions have been abandoned. The emphasis is back on variety and AMOUNT.