To be honest, I rarely believe the Queen when she addresses the nation; the Christmas number is too much of a duty call, and when she has anything to do with parliament, she always looks slightly sour - as we all would, I'm sure, were we required to endorse absolutely everything, while still pretending to be in charge just to save trouble.When she spoke at the second world war commemoration, though, everything was spot on. You can believe in the debt she feels to the veterans' generation, and the continuing resonance its sacrifices have for her. The only jarring note was this: sandwiched between references to their "resilience" and "courage" was mention of their "sense of humour".I don't think I'm being unfair to her majesty when I say this isn't a language I'd expect her to understand, still less namecheck as a national boon. There is certainly no public record of her ever having made a joke, unless her experiment with crossing the short-legged corgi with the shorter-legged dachshund was actually done in the name of humour. There is likewise no photographic record of her laughing or smiling, apart from when Motivator won the 2005 Derby, earning the monarch ... well, I have no idea what her bet was, but even it was a fairly modest sum, that still leaves a smile related to acquisition, rather than actual mirth.This isn't just blinkered republicanism - there are royals who manifestly have a laugh. Princess Margaret was one; I fancy that Prince Andrew sometimes enjoys a joke or two, albeit of a coarse and obvious nature. I am speculating wildly, but he has the big mouth of a man who likes to laugh.The point is, though, that if you were to find anyone with a solid and expressible sense of British identity, then definitely in their top five, and probably their top two, would be the royal family and A Highly Developed Sense of Humour. There are a number of contradictions here: for a start, our figurehead lacks the one quality that we think recommends us; and the minute you start pontificating on the quality of your humour, it almost certainly rules out the possibility that you have any. But modern nationhood is a complicated business, so you'd expect anomalies.The substance of our fabled wit, as we see it, is this: first, it is much more advanced than any other country's, especially Germany. When people discuss the Blitz spirit, it is very often in terms of the cockney sparrows who lose a leg and then make a hilarious pun about getting legless. We are happy to admit that our bombing of German cities was as devastating as theirs of ours, but we are absolutely determined that it go down in the annals: whoever bombed whom to pieces, we definitely had the most fun. Oh yes. Humour is bound up with pluck and stoicism, as if its prime function were to keep our mouths so occupied with drolleries that moaning and whining were literally impossible.This is something that came out immediately after last week's bombing, a swell of pride in the age-old grit of the Londoner, another bad thing happening without denting our character. It was different to the response in Madrid. The underlying feelings - shock, mourning, sympathy, defiance - were the same, but where they took to the streets to vent them, we have been rigidly business-as-usual.That's not to say that there was an instant cache of tube-bomb jokes circulating over the net - that may happen and it may not. My feeling is that we've all lost our stomachs for the hilarity of breaking the bereavement taboo, which is why disasters such as Beslan or the tsunami spawned nothing like the one-liners they used to.But whether we ever joke about the attack itself is irrelevant. The capital, even by Thursday evening, had its sense of humour back: grim, black and muted it may have been, but the pubs were full. In other cultures, resilience is manifested in dignity and vigil, but here we manifest it exactly as the Queen said: with a sense of humour. We must be OK, because we're ready with our poor wordplay once more.I think this explains why figures such as Ken Livingstone are more welcome in bad times than Tony Blair - not because Ken is incapable of gravitas, but because we know his base register is more skittish and mischievous, closer to the normality we seek instantly to resume.The funny thing is, disasters aren't that funny. Thursday wasn't, and I'm sure the Blitz wasn't exactly a laugh. To take pride in such a response is quirky - but if even the Queen has noticed, it must be true.