This chapter examines meritocracy as central to conceptions of ‘the people’ at the mid-century. It focuses on Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, and Storm Jameson, figures closely linked to the Workers’ Educational Association, a network that stimulated thought on class and culture. Meritocracy bifurcated the early formations of cultural studies. For Williams, meritocracy and intelligence create cultural fragmentation to be resisted by the abolishment of the eleven plus, a manoeuvre that would facilitate a common culture as Williams advocated for working-class intellectual power. For Hoggart, who was tentative about the working-class intellect, the social mobility of those found mentally able in the scholarship examination created a degradation of traditional working-class culture, which the adult education movement evaded. Storm Jameson’s novel A Cup of Tea for Mr Thorgill (1957) embodies tensions surrounding communitarian ethics versus individual advancement and elite cultural standards versus cultural inclusion as it examines concerns shaping cultural studies at the mid-century.