Do Labour ministers want to lose the by-election?

We all know that there are plenty of knives out for Gordon Brown in the Labour Party.  But a detail in this post by Benedict Brogan is still pretty astonishing.  He writes of a Labour minister who said he’d like the party to be defeated in Crewe and Nantwich by a Tory landslide, so they can “force the bastard out”.  Unfortunately, Brogan’s “Tory informant” didn’t reveal who that minister was.  Any guesses?