Politics is about a father-daughter relationship and  a ménage à trois which includes the daughter and two of her friends.  The narrator says  that the novel is about "goodness".

"Goodness" here means "Value theory"( which encompasses a range of approaches to understanding how, why, and to what degree persons value things; whether the object of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. This investigation began in ancient philosophy, where it is called axiology or ethics. Early philosophical investigations sought to understand good and evil and the concept of "the good". Today much of value theory is scientifically empirical, recording what people do value and attempting to understand why they value it in the context of psychology, sociology, and economics.)

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_theory}

Indeed, even if Politics is not only about politics (and only about sex) Politics is still about politics.

The main theme in this novel are the confrontation between altruism (the principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others) and selfishness (to be concerned, sometimes excessively or exclusively, for oneself or one's own advantage, pleasure, or welfare, regardless of others) as a moral value through the ménage a trois formed by Moshe, Nana and Anjali. An other main theme is sexuality which is compared with the USSR's story.

• Nana – protagonist and Moshe's girlfriend
• Papa – Nana's father
• Moshe – a Jewish actor and Nana's boyfriend
• Anjali – a bisexual and third member of the ménage à trois  with nana and Moshe

Nana is an attractive young woman in her mid-twenties. She is described as tall, thin, pale, blonde and breasty. She is working on her  thesis and she lives with Papa (His father), in Edgware, a suburb of London. She met Moshe who is a young Jewish actor from Finsbury, and they start a relationship. Then, Anjali, a friend of Moshe's, become a very close friend of the couple. She is more and more present  in their sparetime activities.One day Nana, suggests a "threesome" because she wants Moshe to be happy( a threesome is sexual activity that involves three people at the same time).

 For some months Nana and Moshe  and Anjali begins a ménage à trois, who is bisexual. The narrator defines a threesome as "the socialist utopia (a politics ideology) of sex". He  describes  the sociology, psychology and ethics of their ménage à trois ( which can compared with the " Goodness" and the value theory) which are also politics concept) but  he also describes in detail what he calls "sexual etiquette".

For the summer Nana goes on holiday with Papa, leaving Moshe and Anjali. After their return to England Papa suffers a stroke. Nana uses this accident as an excuse  to break up with  Moshe and Anjali. Hir father is sad to learn that his daughter giving up her boyfriend on his account.

During the story, The narrator frequently wonders about philosophical questions and tries to redefine some concepts such as infidelity. ("the selfish desire to be helpful to more than one person").

Adam Thirlwell declared that some situation in the book look like some plot from other novels, but he did not say that he was influenced by them.

- Juliette is a novel written by the Marquis de Sade and published 1797–1801, accompanying Sade's Nouvelle Justine. While Justine, Juliette's sister, was a virtuous woman who consequently encountered nothing but despair and abuse, Juliette is an amoral nymphomaniac murderer who is successful and happy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_%28novel%29

In politics , the narrator declares " He (le Marquis de sade) tried to write his own political porn"  "He didn't want realistic kinkiness,he wanted political kinkiness [...] he was too theorical. When it comes to kinkiness in prose, I am better writer than the marquis de Sade" p160

-Thérèse Philosophe is a 1748 French novel ascribed to Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens. It has been chiefly regarded as a pornographic novel, which accounts for its massive sales in 18th-century France (as pornographic works were the most popular bestsellers of the time). Aside from that however, this novel represents a public conveyance (and arguably perversion) for some ideas of the Philosophes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_the_Philosopher

In politics, the narrator uses this novel to show unrealistic moments in his own novel and why these moments are not so unrealistic.