[vidarh]

"Classically liberal" from a European viewpoint at least varies by country, but is generally considered as close to the political centre compared to e.g. libertarianism.

In many countries it would evoke social liberal ideas, in others it would evoke more conservative liberal ideas, but most will be found to the left of our conservative parties an to the right of our socialist parties (and often to the right of our social democratic parties). Overall, the "gravitational point" of "classically liberal" parties is probably centre-right.

So from a European point of view, it is a "useful descriptor" to the extent it places someone in a fairly narrow range in the political centre vs. for example "libertarian" which today tends to evoke firmly right wing populist or laissez faire politics (despite the existence of plenty left wing libertarian ideologies, such as left-communism, minarchism or libertarian marxism, but these are rarely described as such, and in Europe at least rarely self-identify as libertarian).