Lent challenges for celebrities

UK Prime Minister Theresa May may be facing crunch talks as she leads Britain out of the EU, but it won’t be because she’s munching on potato crisps. At the same time as the Financial Times warned in an editorial that the UK government was “facing the limits of austerity”, she introduced an austerity measure of her own – she is giving up crisps for Lent.

It’s not clear how serious her habit is – a Number 10 spokesman said her favourite flavour of the crunchy snack is salt and vinegar, but was unable to say how often May indulges, telling reporters: “I don’t know how many packets of crisps the prime minister consumes per week, per day or per month, but she will be giving them up.”

Christians traditionally deny themselves a favourite treat over the Lent period from Ash Wednesday – which this year falls on March 1 – to Easter Sunday, to mark Jesus’s 40 days of fasting in the desert.

The story was on the front page of the dour Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, so it is presumably not fake news.

But the Irish Times took a different angle, imagining what various people in the public eye would give up if they were obliged to deprive themselves of a treat. Its best guesses were:

● Donald Trump refrains from tweeting;

● Rory McIlroy says no to invitations for ad hoc rounds of golf in Florida;

● PriceWaterhouseCoopers gives up any accounts involving the handling of shiny red envelopes;

● Kellyanne Conway stops putting her shoes on couches;

● Uber CEO Travis Kalanick stops arguing with his own drivers about how they are treated by the company;

● The Kardashians stop all filming and all social media; just to see if they still exist at the end of Lent.

● The BBC stops interviewing Nigel Farage;

● Gerry Adams gives up his teddy bear, and

● David Beckham gives up expressing his hopes for a knighthood via e-mails.